The Mind of the Artist

Earlier in the year, at the first of a series of parent conferences to discuss the academic goals of the 4-year-old... we told Lucy's teacher that we thought Lu could maybe try drawing without stencils. Perfect boat after perfect lion after perfect snowman -- that's all she brought home.

But now the artist has been revealed!

See here:

Her influences: Fra Filippo Lippi?

The artist is loath to explain her work, but she deigned to reveal a few plot points: In the left, you see the Sunday School teacher. To the right, you see the poor little girl dragged to Sunday School by her father.

Take two:

Now the father is yelling! NO! You must go to Sunday School! Girl is still unhappy and teacher is positively limp with misery. Not sure what is falling from the sky -- some sort of bird-baby-Jesus?

So, you're thinking, poor Lucy. Forced to go to Sunday School by that mean father who still wishes he had made more of his fleeting Sunday School encounters with the young Mariah Carey on Long Island. (Little does he know that Dreamlover was actually about a boy she saw eating Ritz crackers at church. Could it be??? He should try to find her on Facebook!!)

Anyway, the interesting part about this series of work is, Lucy has never been to Sunday School in her life! Not once! And I can't imagine what she thinks she knows about it. (I'm so disillusioned by what this tells me of the artistic process. I'm beginning to wonder if Thomas Kinkade isn't even American!)

Lucy does have a friend who goes to Sunday School and, on Friday, when we happened to have this little friend in the car, I said to her, "Hey Clara, what do you do at Sunday School?" Clara says: "We sing songs. Have snacks. Then, if it's not raining, we go out on the playground." "Well," I say, "that doesn't sound too bad, what do you think, Lu?"

The artist said nothing.

Here she is, looking all angelic herself, after pre-K graduation: