Quarantine Writings

Kids as Art

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The first piece in the collection is square.

Her canvas is warped and there seems to be considerable damage to her structure.

However, the damage seems to be

at no fault to the frame,

rather careless or awkward placement

in storage where

the center suffered a lot of pressure.

This piece in the series is by far

the most technically challenging and impressive.

In an interview with the artists,

they mentioned that at the time,

they did not have as many resources to offer

this piece, and admittedly

gave more attention to

the second and third pieces.

They express that this piece

was the most successful and well-planned;

this panel could very well stand alone

as its own piece.

This piece now stands

welcoming visitors in an apartment lobby

in the Upper West Side.

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The second piece is

a custom made circular canvas.

To those unfamiliar with stretching a circular canvas, it can be challenging as it

requires a ton of patience and strength.

The shape of a circle requires precision

and perfection, which isn’t quite how he

is expressed. He is a palimpsest,

rich with references to former shapes and lines. According to the artists, this piece was the most challenging and unwilling to be how they’d wanted it to be.

I mentioned in an earlier critique that this piece looks entirely unfinished,

and while I would still say that there are some areas that are unresolved,

I would like to add that it’s improvisational feel adds to the charm and appeal of this piece. Perhaps I would revise those words to say: there appears to be an open-endedness to this piece that makes sense in some areas and doesn’t in others. This piece has gone through multiple collectors, and its current status is unknown.

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The third piece was an entire

accident the creators say.

The square canvas looks calibrated

and solid- quite frankly pampered as well, lacking the rugged qualities

of the first and second.

There is an extreme attention to detail

and strong sense of direction

instilled in this piece,

but regardless,

the paint seems to meander

in areas it shouldn’t.

Its composition includes elements

of the first and second painting,

however, the colors are more muted than

the vibrantly radiant colors of the former two. The artists marked this piece at

the highest value of the three,

explaining that this piece is destined

to succeed because of their faith in her potential. However,

there have been

no offers for this one.

We'll talk when we get home

Okay top three things that confirm I’m going to get an ass beating:

One, I come home later than midnight,

two, most of the phone calls from school and

third, any variation of “we’re gonna talk about this later.”

The latter is by far the scariest. Because at least for the first two,

there are options for potentially avoiding the ass beating.

If I can sneak into the apartment after my parents have fallen asleep

by the grace of god, my nocturnal ass’s night-vision, and calculated

footsteps on the least creaky floorboards I make it to bed, it’ll be in bad

taste for their own mornings to hit me. If I come home anywhere from 3-5am

it’s a gamble, because they wake up pretty often at these hours to pee at night.

And if by any unforeseeable obstacle like an ironing board unfolded, or disloyal floorboard, I make a noise loud enough to wake up my parents, it’s game over.

As for phone-calls? Those usually are caused by my own struggles with my undiagnosed ADHD and the nonsensicalness of calculus. Which is kinda

whatever, and inevitable because what am I going to tell my calculus

teacher? “Hi Mr. Pichkur, so you not boutta give me a 68 on my test

because if I show this to my dad he’s finna beat my ass. Could you

curve this up? Oh, it’s already given a generous curve and it would

be totally unfair to the other students to help my grade? That makes

a lot of sense, thanks.” Yeah. I actually already had a conversation

like this minus the abusive dad bit. Anyway, the third is the

scariest because I won’t really know what I did wrong until I

ask-- which by the way if you hadn’t caught on, not

knowing is ample reason to get an ass beating.

“Wait till we get home.”