homework is fun!

so The Teen and I have an inspirational chat. . .

or rather, he listens to something I've said (wonders will never cease). . . and takes a small degree of inspiration from it - his thoughts fly in a direction he hadn't anticipated and he is pleased with the result. . .

which is all a bit weird, because usually he treats me and my suggestions (should that be my suggestions and I?) with a tolerable degree of derision. . .

he's currently planning his art work for his upcoming exam and has had idea after idea after idea (I knew dragging him along to those exhibitions was not a waste of my time or his); one of them involving Che Guevara; I gently point out that perhaps the visual iconography of Che is an artistic area within which he feels comfortable because so many teens do and thus he is familiar with the image - over-familiar, in fact - and perhaps he could be more original. . . ?. . .

I did point it out very gently, I hasten to add. . .

never one not to want to be original (which teens aren't?) (it's kind of a paradox, isn't it? they either want to all be the same, or they all want to be different and are thus all being the same anyway) (is that a paradox, or just irony? or perhaps I need a thesaurus) he looks at me curiously and seems to think about what I say and goes off to do a little more thinking. . . he comes back and we talk a little more and we end up discussing the printed word and fonts (a subject close to my heart, as you, dear reader, know) and I look thru my art cupboard for supplies and then on-line for something else which leads me to a place where I even manage to find him a MetallicA (sic) typeface. . .

. . .found myself a Coca-Cola one, too

somehow a small degree of brightness enters my heart and I genuinely smile for the first time in days

it's a good feeling

6 comments:

Sorrow said...

oh
I bet thats a great feeling..
I chased mine with a stick around the house threatening to bash him..
he of course evaded laughing like a loon the entire time.
kids
the little dears...
..
...
..

metallica hunh?

Mel said...

k....

Gosh--that even made ME smile.

Ain't it cool when you get to start being even a WEE bit smart again?!

:-)

katherine. said...

I'm smiling too....

parents spend so much time planting little seeds here and there...way cool when you get to see them sprout a little....

Dave said...

Huzzah!

I, Like The View said...

Dave (-:

katherine it's tricky tho, because it's art. . . but every artist benefits from a little inspiration

Mel "smart" might be pushing it! however, it was wonderful to engage with him on a level of mutual interest - I didn't want to influence him, just get him to do some out of the box thinking without him loosing track of his own initial thought processes

sorrow so long as he was laughing with you, not at you. . .

and yup, MetallicA, but then this morning he asked about Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet. . .

Anonymous said...

Pretty amazing all round.
MetallicA eh :) That was a very clever bit of out of the box thinking!