Manly Art?

I don't discuss art often here because anyone who knows me knows that I'm failry ignorant on the subject. Those that have read this blog for a while may recall my ramblings about a couple of members of the Group of Seven in December of 2009. Now before everyone starts reading this and saying, "that Alan is such an ass-hat" just hold off a minute. My son has given me permission to blog about his recent creations and knows that I won't cross the line. Well, not too much...

Sean is not an artistic person. I don't think that's a secret to anyone that knows him. Through grade school, the most artistic tendencies he displayed were stick men and colouring books and crayons (and he didn't even stay within the lines).This obviously comes from me as I haven't an artistic bone in my body. I can appreciate art, but making it is another matter.

The boy preferred to spend his time taking things apart to see how they worked...small appliances, a television, a microwave...nothing was immune to his dissection. Thankfully all of these items were past their prime because he didn't have a clue how to put them back together.

You can imagine my surprise a few weeks ago when he brought home a sculpted....er, large purple object (shown above) from his 9th grade art class at school. He has named it 'The Gilded Demon' because he figured it "looked sort of royal". I am encouraging him to box it up and FedEx it to William and Kate in the UK to help celebrate their nuptials this April. I think he wants to keep it, though, on account of the long hours fashioning it into just the right shape with his blistered fingers. The GD is a wire frame with panty hose stretched over it and painted. I didn't ask where the hosiery in question came from...sometimes a guy's got to have his secrets.

Just when we thought the 'artistic well' was tapped dry Sean brought home this wooden, umm...object...home from school. It was created in the wood working shop. It is made of wood glued together and cut and sanded to the shape shown above. "Nice Arrow," I said. "It's not an arrow," he replied with annoyance in his voice. He looked at me like I had sprouted another head. I was nervous now, trying to avoid bringing up the symbolic shape of the object. "It's a car," he said and pointed out the drill holes in the sides of the shaft for a future axle. "Very nice," I said, smiling and nodding. Drilled into the square end is a large hole, apparently for a future CO2 canister. Just guessing here, but if Sean has a French project soon he'll probably create a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. And in science he'll probably create a replica of the V2 rocket...

We've probably got nobody to blame but ourselves for the unique shape of the boy's artistic creations. Perhaps it was all the trips to Toronto we took him on as a small child. What's the first landmark you can see towering over the city for miles before arriving there? Of course...it's the CN Tower, piercing the brown-ish air of the Toronto skyline. Don't get me wrong, we're all for his creative endeavours...especially if he can off of them in the future. Even as I am typing this I can hear him in the living room listening to bagpipe music on YouTube. He'll be 15 next week and, if I may use a cliche, definitely walks to the beat of his own drummer. I'm OK with whatever he does down the road. I'll be behind it 100% as long as it's a) legal b) he can live off of it, and c) it gets him out of our basement and into his own place.