My daughter made me a pillow. She makes things.
She got a doll one Christmas when she was seven and spent all of Boxing Day making a very detailed spaceship out of the box it came in, complete with a control panel and a small but elegant closet. Later, dissatisfied with plastic dreamhouses™, other dolls were lucky enough to live in an apartment building that she fashioned from a tall cardboard box, complete with a working elevator made from a smaller box, with furniture made of even smaller boxes and a shower made out of aluminum foil.
Then she started actually making dolls, first with a large dull needle, and very (almost too) soon after that, with a sharp one.
I would like to say she “gets this” from me, that my mad scribbling and singing and fol-de-rol are the root of her interests, but her mother is the truest artist in her heritage, a serious artist who pays attention to things like “detail” and “structure”; it is her mother that stands bravely before the infinite blank canvas of existence, recognizing the yawning, bottomless chasm over which the simple rope bridge of creativity spans, while I dance through life like a chocolate Martha Graham.
So my daughter is born of frolic and fury, chaos and order, madness and duct tape; to arrange, align, and adhere disparate elements, ideas and objects together is a her family legacy, destiny, and heritage. She’s a mad scientist, born of mad scientists.
Anyway.
The pillow.
It is pink, but only because that’s the color of the material.
Much more importantly, the pattern of the cloth: a little tiny taxi, a Checker, is repeated over and over facing many different angles – curvy white lines emanate from the vehicles as if showing the direction they are going, except that the lines are tangled together like a skein of yarn after a cat’s played with it. My daughter found this material in a scrap box, her classmates were somewhat confused at her absolute glee having discovered it, but then again the name of their family business wasn’t CabsEverywhere.
At only a foot wide and 9 inches tall, the piece seemed destined for a small pillow.
She sewed it by hand and gave it to me and it’s on my chair, supporting the spot in my back where I keep all my age.
Macaroni necklaces. Did you make one? Maybe a kazoo from a toilet paper tube? A diorama for a book report, or a magic wand from a twig you found outside? A sheet of paper can fly if you make it into an airplane, or transform you into an NBA star if you crumple and toss it. Long before formal training of any kind there was Elmer’s Glue™, a magical substance. I’m old enough to remember mucilage, which I still think was a mean trick to play on children, but got the job done. Some of you had glue sticks (fancy pants); I never really got into that scene… I need that moment when the paper buckles into little waves and you have to press it flat and wipe around the edges… that’s a true bond, that’s not coming off in twenty years, you’ll see that again in the attic or garage when your parents ask you to move those boxes because they’re retiring and need the space for the Peloton and IT WILL STILL BE STUCK TOGETHER, believe me.
As children, most of us didn’t see ourselves as consumers, we were creators, with only the most basic of tools and skill sets. Making things was often characterized as “play”, but seemed like part of our job as kids. Where and when did creation get sidelined to celebrity chefs and home makeover gurus? Oh, and superstar DJs, because I think if any of us had been at class the day they said you could grow up to wear comfortable clothes all the time with a private plane flying around making people dance for a living we would have all signed up for that.
“Adults” often stand outside creation as if it’s not a verb they are heir to; even worse, those deemed creative are placed on society’s edges… the fascinating misfit, the genius outcast. So it takes a brave parent to offer artists as role models for their child, the whole “steady income” and “stable personality” gets thrown out the window in the hopes that this young person grows to be a catalyst of ideas and passion and possibility.
And so, at this special time of year,
our family looks to Victor Von Frankenstein as a key figure;
a noble dreamer who used his talents in science and quilting
to create something… very unique.
Sew, my daughter.
Take the lifeless scraps of what the world deems worthless
and make something new that’s…
ALIVE.
The Maddest Science.