pollock

when i was in...oh, i think it was...4th or 5th grade...a self-described "art docent" came down from on high ("on high" meaning her large, cranberry spice glade plug-ins-scented house) to teach ~us kids~ about art.

we were herded into a "multi-purpose" classroom with no windows and carpet the color of hamburger helper to stare at poster prints of matisse, van gogh (juicier details of the man's life not included) degas, picasso, and other greats who have unwittingly created a raison d'être for people they'll never meet and probably would object to being associated with. nevertheless, we were charged with creating mediocre imitation krab kopies of what these geniuses had mastered and introduced to humankind. the art docent played enya for us--to inspire us--and flitted about the room in her williams sonoma apron replete with vertical chambre stripes. she spoke in a minnie mouse voice, cajoling the boys into drawing tutus and encouraging them not to break the ballpoint pens and drink the ink. similar invitations were made not to stow beads up nostrils or ingest chalk pastels.

the day that we re-enacted the madness of jackson pollock, several students forgot to bring their token "painter's smock" aka their dad's old work shirt. these forgetters were not exempted from flipping paint and being the involuntary canvas for students with less than perfect aim. in practice, the whole thing looked like a fitting platform for a Tide commercial. thirty-two 9 year-olds were handed buckets of black industrial paint and a thick paint brush with flimsy bristles. the "canvas" was a broad roll of butcher paper, laid flat on the grass outside the classroom.

art, in the form of unintended consequences, ensued. the paper ended up relatively unscathed paintwise, with only a few deliberate drops here and there. mostly, it was the scene of a raucous and teacher-condoned kid crime. the canvas bore gaping holes where feet had perforated it and crumpled stamps where paint-drenched children had fallen and rolled like piggies in the mud. this being the last activity of the day, parents were rolling up in their pleasant worlds, lattes in hand, casually clad in vests and workout clothes to a battlefield of school children flipping, rolling, sloshing and conjuring pollock as they surreptitiously decorated the art docent with a few clumsy flips of the brush.

parents' jaws dropped, they rushed into the mayhem like soldiers on the frontline, a slow-mo "suuuuusie...nnnoooooooo!" bellowing from their horror-stricken mouths as they rushed to stop their kids' brand new school clothes from becoming prime candidates for goodwill. the finished product was a trove of pissed off pta members, a sheepish art docent, and 32 children with a new appreciation for modern art.