Essay Number One

Once upon a time little baby tuckoo was asked this question:
                “Why is your hand always dirty?”
                 And she answered: “Teacher says it’s ‘cos I write queer.”
And it was this disturbing quirk that made Teacher advise her parents to enroll her in art classes to improve the awful penmanship that resulted from her condition. Teacher had had success with this treatment in the past and, plus, “those people” are good at artistic endeavors.
                 “You know, left-handers.”
                  Michelle, of course, didn’t know of their conversation and was therefore excited about going to art class since she was pretty sure it was just for fun and not associated with yucky penmanship in any way. Plus she had just been to the local museum on a field trip and had decided to be an artist forever and ever. When Teacher asked the class to draw pictures of themselves as grown-ups, Michelle drew a stick with a little freckle-shaped dotty thing in its hand and a beret on its head and no smile because artists do not smile. Ever. They are very serious people, and they stick out their tongues and look at their thumbs to see if their paintings are done. So off Michelle went to art class with her big purple portfolio bag and specially designed water cup that was for artists only. The art lady had breasts that rested on the top of her skirt and chains on her glasses and asked, “Do you have a favorite artist?” Michelle didn’t and felt very stupid because of it.
                “I like the painting with the clocks in it.”
                “Aw, there are very many paintings with clocks in them!” The lady laughed and didn’t let Michelle explain that this painting had clocks that were all gooey and this thing like a cow made out of nose in the middle. The lady would have just thought she was silly anyway; that’s probably not what was in the painting at all, and because Michelle was just a little kid, she did not understand what the painting was of. After months of art lessons, Michelle continued to receive bad marks in penmanship and, on top of that, couldn’t draw a horse that didn’t look crippled or a face that didn’t look like a paper plate with rips in it. She eventually came to a conclusion:
                “I am terrible at art.”
                 “Is that supposed to be a bird?” said her junior-high art teacher. “Because it looks like a rabbit.”
                “I will never be an artist.”
                “You have poor drawing skills. Maybe you’d like to make a vase instead.” And alone in the clay corner she sat.
                But then it happened that, many years later, Michelle met a silly little man who called her an idiot. Now in any other situation, she would have slapped that silly little monocle right out of his eye, but he had been dead for about forty years, so she had no choice but to continue reading. And this Tzara fellow was right; she was an idiot! Why had she stopped making art just because people told her it was no good? Her art was for her -- no one else, her! No one else had the right to tell her a goddamn thing about it! She could make art and make art and make art, and anyone who didn’t like it could just go to hell! She had been trying to be an artist for all these years and, really, she had been an artist all along! It was like the Wizard of Oz, but instead of ruby slippers, she had Dadaism, and instead of Glenda the Good Witch, she had Marcel Duchamp (still in the dress, though). All those nights crying as a child, all that suffering and hate that she felt for not being able to make beautiful things was gone! For there was no beauty, there was no art; there was only what she made!