How can someone for whom the basis of their entire life is art, art, art be spawned from someone who not only doesn't understand art, but doesn't even like it all that much? How does this happen? My father was an extraordinarily artistic man, yet my mother is a complete art philistine. I used to think there was something lacking in my abilities when she would tell me that my work wasn't very interesting or that she didn't "get" it (what's to "get" in a landscape? how much more basic can that be?) and couldn't for the life of her understand why I was "doing that". These are comments I have heard countless times within my life and still hear on a fairly regular basis. With all due respect to Charles Schulz, how can a picture of Snoopy sleeping on his doghouse be superior to a Paul Klee? In my mother's world, it is. I no longer bring her to museums or galleries with me, because while she thinks she's going to enjoy the day ahead, she is really only looking forward to the day in theory. Once we arrive and begin to actually look at art, she's so far out of her element she becomes, very quickly, tired and bored. Not to mention often rather embarrassing in her uncensored comments, especially when it comes to modern art. While many would think this may be due to her age and the era in which she was raised, it is in fact due far more to her ignorance of the subtleties of art and the beauty within it than that she's simply old. Using her age is a cop out. In our last visit to the Museum of Fine Arts together, after she had spent an hour or so looking irritated and bored within an exhibit of Cezannes and Picassos, I found her sitting on a bench conversing with a man who clearly was cut from the same cloth as my mother. Both were loudly denigrating the work opposite their seat, demanding to know how the artist could possibly call that mess art. After all, where was the supposed cathedral in the piece they were viewing? How can a bunch of blobs and mismatched shapes be anything real? I found myself getting irritated enough to have to walk away. But after giving it some thought I have decided it isn't so much irritating as it is sad. I have tried to imagine what life would be like for me without art and I can't even express how miserable it would be. For me to live a life with little or no beauty, no art, no joy, wouldn't be living at all. How tedious and depressing would such a life be. I'm thankful that I am who I am, because to be like my mother would just be devastating to my soul.
