I
confess to vast gaps in my art education and more to the point, in my
schooling on the appreciation of art. I suspect much of that has to
do with my date of birth. See, I was born in mid-February and under
the laws of New York City's educational system back the, I was
smack on the cusp of grades when it came time to begin my schooling.
My long suffering Parents who had no doubt had problems enough were
then faced with the choice of sticking me either into the first grade
or in Kindergarten. I don't think they fully understood the
magnitude of that choice. Going into Kindergarten right then would
have made me the oldest kid in the kindergarten class. It would have
meant that for ever after, I could have my birthday's first and do
all the stuff 'older' kids got to do before the rest of that unwashed
mass. As the teen years approached, I would bask in my maturity and
all that implied. Life would be good.
My
parents stuck me into the First Grade.
I
was the youngest in my first grade class. I was at the bottom of the
heap. My future loomed dark. My First Grade teacher was Miss
Hartman. I only remember her as being tall and wearing dresses with
big flowers on them. I also do not recall that she had much going
when it cam to teaching us about art. See, I noticed all the
Kindergarten kids carrying home all sorts of things made of colored
paper. They got to make masks and airplanes and all kinds of great
stuff. I think they had the school's total allotment of colored
paper. We never did any interesting art stuff. We did get to paint
- rarely -with some odd liquid watercolors that smelled funny on some
crappy stuff called 'Oaktag.' Oaktag was a sort of thick paper and
had a kind of dull speckled color, like it had been left outside for
a few years. Our paint cracked on it as it dried and flaked off. It
had a sort of slick surface so crayon drawings smeared. And I was
big on crayons. Miss Hartman was big on drawing straight lines. I
still remember this stuff. Our artistic senses clashed. My art
education suffered.
Decades
later I learned that Miss Hartman often came to school early on
Monday mornings in her “party clothes” and changed in the
teacher's bathroom into her flowered classroom dress. I got this bit
of dish from A 'Miss R', another teacher who was at PS 6 at the same
time. I remember 'Miss R' as being kind of cute. My opinion of Miss
Hartman took an almost quantum leap, but the die was cast as far as my
appreciation of art.
Some
years later, around 8th grade and still youngest in the
class, I had an art teacher who was about 4 feet tall and wore thick
glasses with a hearing aid built into them. The most interesting
days in that classroom happened when she misplaced her glasses.
This is all I remember from that Art Class.
My
bank offers a card that gets me into a bunch of local museums for
free. I just found out that this will end at the end of this month. The getting in free part, that is. I will probably not opt to ever pay $24 to get into MOMA. I
don't always understand what is on the walls. Most of the time I am
sure it is either crap or a joke. Maybe both. If I am wrong, I
blame Miss Hartman and my parents. And that little Art Teacher with
the thick glasses with a hearing aid built into them.
So today on a
rainy Friday afternoon, I went to see the latest super-hyped offering
at MOMA. For free.
This time I am pretty sure it was both crap and a
joke:
.............and yes, that is exactly what you think it is, in a video loop projected on the wall.
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