The Day I Destroyed a Picasso

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Picasso's Birthday Celebration at Discovery Village Childcare and Preschool in Tarrytown NY

It was a mothering moment that now makes me cringe with embarrassment and remorse.   

The basement, where my then five (now 24-year-old) daughter played, was suspiciously quiet. I rushed downstairs and saw my daughter from afar. She stood, with an adorable grin on her face, staring up at a wall. Whatever she was observing was, at that point, still shielded from my view. I turned the corner to enter the room, wondering what could possibly be so engaging to her. 

I looked on with dismay. My cream white, professionally painted wall was covered with crayon!

I took a deep breath and paused long enough to compose myself. “What happened?” I asked, using substantial energy reserves to muster the feigned calm mom-voice I had worked so hard to master. “Look Mommy,” my daughter proudly declared, “See my Picasso!” 

“Your Picasso,” I asked? 

“Yes,” she joyously replied. “Our teacher read us a book about how, when Picasso was a kid, he drew on the walls. This is my Picasso!” 

I wish I could say I celebrated my daughter’s creativity, left her Picasso on the wall, and purchased canvases for her to create more Picassos. Alas, I did not.

“It’s, um, it’s ah, it’s, it’s, it’s. . . beautiful,” I managed to stutter out, in an entirely unconvincing tone. I went upstairs, called a local painter, and scheduled him to paint over the Picasso the very next day. I still feel a pang of sadness and loss, remembering the barren cream white wall, absent my daughter’s work of art; her Picasso.   

“Every child is an artist,” Picasso himself famously declared. “The problem is to remain an artist once they grow up.” 

My daughter had presented me with a gift, a moment to nurture her inner artist, and I had failed miserably. While schools are frequently, and in my opinion, rightfully, blamed for squelching children’s natural creativity, in this case, my daughter’s teacher had brought wonder and inspiration. It was I, her mother, who had failed to make room for her creativity. I could have literally transformed our basement into an art studio where she and my son (who was 2 at the time) could draw, paint, and create to their hearts’ content. 

I often think about traveling back in time, speaking to the former-me. If there were any way possible, I would return to that moment, standing in front of the basement wall covered in crayon. I would put my arm around “former-me,” and whisper in her ear, “Leave the Picasso. Tell her it is magnificent, and you are proud to have it on the wall.” In fact, I would advise former-me to ask my daughter to sign the wall. Tell her the art, inspired by Picasso, is even more precious to you than a Picasso. 

With time, I have changed. This past October 25th, I celebrated Pablo Picasso’s birthday with the children of Discovery Village, the childcare center, and preschool I run in Tarrytown. Throughout the day, as we created whimsical artwork with a range of Picasso inspired shapes, I could not shake Picasso’s wise words. “Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once they grow up.”

So, I ask you, moms (and dads, teachers, grandparents, babysitters, and others who love and care for kids). If each child is, as Picasso says, an artist, how can we embrace and nurture their creativity? If the problem, as Picasso declares, is to remain an artist once they grow up, how can we strengthen their own confidence in their creativity? How can we ingrain in them a sense of the possible so strong that it withstands the many pressures life brings to conform? 

I’d love to know your thoughts. Comment below!

1 COMMENT

  1. Beautiful story! I wish I had seen Talia’s Picasso! I probably would have reacted as you did but her Picasso was a treasure.

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