A Deprived Childhood

As a child, I always enjoyed arts and crafts. I loved to color, draw and paint. I anxiously awaited birthdays and holidays, knowing that I would be getting a set of markers or a tin of the nice colored pencils and a brand new drawing pad. Even today, I cannot open a box a crayons without taking a nice long smell. While my mother encouraged me to be creative and imaginative, she was perfectly content limiting my creative outlets to the cleanest activities. I drew and colored mostly, use watercolors, glue and scissors ocassionally and rarely, if ever, was allowed to fingerpaints, poster paints or modeling clay. I remember having plenty of cans of Play-Doh and one of those clay presses with the different that made spaghetti or a hollow tube, but rarely remember using it.

"Maybe another day, when we have more time," my mother would explain, "little pieces will fall on the floor and dry up in the carpet."

I remember getting a pottery set for my birthday one year. It had a battery-operated potter's wheel, a pound of clay and little carving tools. It also had a paint set to decorate your finished product. I had seen a potter on Reading Rainbow. I loved how the clay looked as he wet his hands and shaped the big blob of clay. He made it look so easy and effortless, as if the clay knew exactly what it was supposed to become. In the end, he had a large round pot, with just a tiny opening at the top. He fired it, painted some rings around the rim and glazed it. I was convinced that with my little potter's wheel, I would be able to work as he did. However, the pottery set came with the potential to be very messy. It had clay and moving parts, plus paints and brushes. It was also a project that could not be finished in one day. The finished piece would need time to completely dry out and harden before I would be able to paint it. This meant more than one day of potential messes. This was an entire weekend of disasters, in one simple birthday gift. I do not know what ever happened to the pottery set, but I remember it sitting on the top shelf of my bedroom closet for many years while I patiently waited for the glorious day when I would get to use it to come. I imagined that, eventually, on some bright and crisp fall day, my mother would decide the time was right and suggest we take out the pottery wheel and create. The day never came. Either she truly forgot it was even there or she did not have much confidence in my abilities as a potter, and was just trying to protect me.

Now that I have my own child and house to take care of, I can understand where she was coming from. My kid is barely a year and a half, is relatively small and does not yet have any hobbies that have a high risk for messes. However, she manages to leave a trail of toys as she moves through the house. She is like a miniature tornado, collecting and spiraling up empty plastic containers and lids and depositing them at every turn. On top of the baby's daily messes, I have dishes and laundry to do, so I can now understand why my mother had little desire to scrape dried clay out of the carpet or vacuum up glitter residue and tiny pieces of construction paper, while making dinner and washing our school uniforms.

In an attempt to get over the art deprivation I endured as a child, I bought the Martha Stewart pumpkin glittering kit today. I will be hosting a little pumpkin glittering and carving party tomorrow. I have been admiring the new Martha Stewart Craft supplies at Michaels since they were introduced and finally decided to take a stab at it. The kit is small, just three bottles of glitter and a bottle of white glue. The directions are very simple, not even a separate booklet, just a quick blurb on the back of the box. The actual crafting part of the process looks easy enough. Cover the a section of the pumpkin with glue, then cover with glitter. Repeat and let dry. The real test is the clean up part. I will only be able to control the glitter for so long, before I give in and just let it fall where ever it falls. I have a feeling that I will be seeing . tasting and living glitter for many months to come, long after the red and gold leaves are gone and my little glitter pumpkin has rotted away on the front porch.

It will be worth it, though. After all, this is supposed to be therapeutic.

Update: Sparkle Pumpkin day was a success. The pumpkins look exquisite and I am still finding glitter a week later.