Literary Influence
"Briefly, I now have two of the most wonderful books, written by Marie Popova. One is called THE VELOCITY OF BEING, Letters to Young Readers. Here is a drawing discovered after class, influenced by this book:
The literary part of the book is a little above the kids but so gorgeously illustrated they are continually drawn to it, responding to the stories within the letters as best they can. With almost non-exisistant English, Chay Chay had no idea what the letter says about the power of reading, but the illustration reached him, motivated him, and I had the private joy of discovering his path in the casual clutter left behind at the end of the day.
What delights me most is that I can find a match for every one of his illustrations except the figure at the top of his copied ladder and moon...I think he has marvelously inserted himself in it. What do you think?"
Later, this email was edited into a larger post but the kids continue to surprise me with private examples of the book's continuing influence. Last week, this was discovered in Resty Joy's drawing book:
There's a funny story about my not realizing she'd copied/edited it from Popova's book. I'd taken it seriously, as if SHE were the one who'd discovered the described note in her drawing, had found it inside one of OUR books, so I was almost frenzied searching through the bookcase seeking a book old and worn enough to be the one...until she produced Popova's Velocity of Being. Here's the page that inspired her:
Confession Time: Lately, I've been feeling emotionally unable to effectively continue holding Saturday Art with the kids, as well as having the energy to maintain this website. I was about to pull the plug on both.
The last four months of full focus on hauling PILAR, the re-stepping of her masts, re-rigging them, too, has been intense; ultimately rewarding but depleting on several levels. So, while my boat's needs were being met, the kid's needs were not. That morning, I'd gotten frustrated and disgusted with Resty Joy's lack of interest in an, admittedly hasty ('busy-work') word game, given to the others. Later, after my bad attitude towards hers, but prior to being suddenly allowed to see what she'd been working on, I'd seen her sitting alone in the far corner of the room, hunched over her drawing book with a large and droopy pillow on her head, and knew I was failing. Time to quit.
Everything changed when she freely brought me her book to show what she'd been working on. This, from a child who hates having her photograph taken, who routinely speaks so low she cannot be heard then says, 'Never-mind' when asked to repeat what she'd said, and routinely answers, 'I don't know,' to any inquiry for a personal preference...though she does know because she's extraordinarily bright when it sneaks out of her. No wonder I'd thought that the lonely letter found in the artwork story of a library book, asking someone to write to the author, had inflamed my own guilt for earlier being dismissive towards her!
Sometimes the way she designs her art work, or asks a difficult question, or repeatedly watches one special video of a Israeli/Palistinian Women's Peace March, I am filled with awe. Humbled.
Saturday, it was clear that it is not for me to judge how much or how fast what I have to offer bears fruit. Selfishly, it bears fruit in ME, so I will continue to provide a Saturday place of exposure to exploration for the children to visit. And, I will continue to post what we do there...in all it's gloriously messy humanity.
In that, Maria Popova guides me, again:
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"Looking back on the most important things I have learned about life, I keep returning to a central paradox of our culture: We know that the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst, yet we crave stories of overnight success and spontaneous self-actualization, disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming, in the incremental ripening by which we become who we are, the innumerable tiny choices, the imperceptibly small steps by which we pave the path to our own destiny in the very act of walking it. We are each a continuous becoming, our future a rosary of presents strung along the strand of presence — presence with the smallest corpuscles of existence: the smell of a neighbor’s curry slipping through the window cracked in midwinter, the atlas of wrinkles on the hands of the cashier scanning the box of strawberries at the grocery store. Sensing, noticing — the raw materials of presence, and thus the elemental stardust of our becoming."
