So I’m taking this class for teaching AP Art and one of our assignments was to make a work of art about our childhood home. And to write about our process & title it. What was hard for me was that as we presented I felt everyone had very positive renderings, paintings, and other works of art. I felt really intimidated and vulnerable in that I drew my parents’ farmhouse, which is pretty void of a coat of paint. And the subject matter is very dark in nature. It’s hard to hear an instructor comment “I’m sorry,” about the situation behind the work instead of commenting on the artwork. There is that awkward silence. Even when other artists said they had troubled childhoods, most tried to find what was beautiful about their childhood. I have to say, I have many wonderful childhood memories, but the impulse was to draw with charcoal and not avoid the darkness, which is probably typical of my writing process also. So my prompt for the day is really about process—"Don’t Avoid the Darkness.”
