Babysitting future street artists
This weekend homie took a babysitting job for a couple of old, cracked cymbals. Not actually wanting to babysit, they began to ask out favors. Come Saturday morning there are three kids in my living room and a note on the coffee table that said “cashing that IOU”. Lucky for me, I actually like children, and figured taking care of some wouldn’t be the end of the world.
So, there I am, there they are, there’s ramen in the pantry and week-old bananas nobody wanted. I need to keep these kids alive for the next 10 hours, no problem, I can do it.
They were two 10-something year old boys — Lucas, a FreeFire connoisseur and addicteur, who was going through some serious withdrawal without his game, and who flipped out when I told him I did not have a phone for him to play on; and Nicholas, a quiet kid that knows way too much about old Cartoon Network programming, and with whom I managed to discuss from “Sheep in the Big City” to “how Squigglevision Home Movies is peak Home Movies”; — and, an 8-something year old, Kelly, who’s a certified modern day horse girl, and none of that tiktok furry shit, she really just like horses. They were all siblings and were loudly fighting until I put my innate babysitter powers to use.
First, I showed the kids how to make “’young-and-broke’ Sex in the Beaches”, non-alcoholic for them, of course; and then I let them make noise with our new distortion pedal. After that, we had a meeting to discuss the rest of the day’s activities. From breaking bottles, to throwing knives (courtesy of the great Fish-o-mancer) and playing Monopoly bootlegs, we had a plan and the mission to make that Saturday the most fun possible. To start it out, I’d show them how to draw “easy and cool doodles to impress your friends at school”, so we went to the yard with pencils and paper and the class started. We came up with a bunch of cool characters (most of them just things with faces because this Julia Pott phase is not just a phase) and it was super nice; until Kelly had a brilliant idea to make it even better: “Why don’t we draw this stuff on that wall right there?”, she presented, and without thinking twice I shouted “Yes!”. Later on, asking her where the idea came from, she said that on the way to the crib, the car passed by the airport wall with all the graffiti, and that made her want to draw on walls too.
Not gonna lie, when she told me that, it really made me proud. Street art is a school full of wonder, because the same drive that leads architects to construct beautiful buildings, and sculptors beautiful statues, also works in the art of covering in paint a wall you have no rights to. It’s a public service of sorts, a method of embellishment of the world around you, and one that can and should inspire impressionable, young audiences. It brings out artistic individuality, the desire for artistic creation, and is also a direct gateway entrance to understanding protest art. Learning the drive that leads people who fight for righteousness means becoming conscientious of society’s issues. Acknowledging your own power before the man, knowing what’s right and what’s wrong at an early age, is the base to produce a generation of reasonable individuals who are not afraid to point out flaws and raise a fist to correct them.
So, we scavenged the house for scrap supplies (because I wasn’t going to use the good shit on a moldy wall,) and voilà: two handfuls of stub pencils nobody was using because they were too tiny, or cheap and bad. I prepped the space with insulation tape and we started discussion on what we would draw there.
It was unanimous that it had to be big and “like super cool” and “like some real graffiti”. With the dreams we were dreaming, soon those doodles we drew before became not up to par with the grandiose idea of a statement piece, in topic. But despite the natural feud of the siblings, and me saying that “whatever we come up with will be just fine because art is beautiful in all its shapes and forms” not helping at all, we all came to a conclusion in quite the civilized manner, and seemed to have the same idea: that one flower I drew was really cool, and we should do that and give me all directive power because that was taking way too long.
The doodle was of a flower, looking up, terrified of something, like that one dude in that one meme. “What is she terrified of, though?” I asked, and the board came up with various ideas like “os alemão”, a pterodactyl, a mecha robot, a really big boot, but after the boys finished dumping their “cool list”, Kelly came in once more and hit it out of the park with “What if everyone is looking at her?”, and I asked, “What do you mean?”, and she replied, “When I have to present something [to class] at school I feel like that flower.” And there you go, kid’s an art prodigy, the flower is terrified because everybody is looking at her. The boys agreed to do it and we began conceptualizing.
“Who is looking at the flower?” was the next question, and we decided to go for a more naturalist approach: Bugs and the sun, and airplanes, and aliens, and a really, really big planet like Jupiter. So, I drew it
—and that was it.
We decided to do it element by element, instead of drawing and then coloring. At first, to see if it looked good, and then just because. Follows a .gif with the progression, from beginning to end.
When it was too high we got a ladder, when it was too low we endured the ants, and like that we spent like five or six consecutive hours at it, until their dad arrived to pick them up. When they saw him, though, you could hear their little hearts shatter. Those kids were devastated, not wanting to go home without finishing the mural. But it was so dark we could barely see what we were doing, and it was super cold and they didn’t even bring a coat, so all the odds were against them staying. But, through sobbing pleas and tear rivers, we made an agreement with their dad; on the next day they’d stop by again for an hour or two, while he was doing business in the area. Though what was left to be done still looked like two or three days of work, a couple of hours certainly seemed better than nothing. And so they went home, I cleaned up, and realized I was too tired to do anything in a Saturday-GODDAMN-night.
“That’s what having kids must be like”, I thought to myself, and then realized I just spent the whole day taking care of kids and that was the most fun I’ve had all year. They looked up to me, they thought I was cool, hung over my every word, and I felt wise and important. I taught them how to sharpen pencils with a switchblade, how to blend colors, how to swear in German and French; they enjoyed the music I put on, we raved and moshed when Here and Now artists played, and listened to the feelings when DOMI & JD Beck came up, snapping fingers and tapping feet with me. We talked about school and cartoons and horses, and I learned so much (specially about horses) about their child-like ways of seeing the world around them; with Youtube, books, games and movies, as a new generation, new to me, with different feelings and memes and street smarts and things to say—but close enough for my own perception not to feel alien to them, nor theirs to me. I exchanged intellect with children half or below my age and felt enlightened. Going to bed that night I couldn’t stop thinking about how great the next day would be.
On Sunday morning they arrived and we started right away. When their dad showed up, under daylight, he could see what it was that his kids couldn’t stop blabbing about. They gave him a walkthrough and explained what was still left to do, and there was another agreement coming from that: they could come after school for as long as it took to finish the mural, and that they did. Today, Thursday, after the final touches and the final picture, we sat back and looked at it. It was super, exactly what we wanted it to be, but something was wrong. Kelly looked me in the eyes and said, “I want to draw something else now”, so I asked what she meant. “There’s plenty of white walls here”, Kelly explained, “We could draw a bunch of cool stuff on them”. The boys agreed, I agreed, and now we’re waiting for the next opportunity to start work on the rest of the white walls in the yard.
This project was a positive experience for all of those involved and I, I for once was a clear, positive influence. Those kids have potential, they all do, and I’m happy for having part in their personal and artistic development. My heart of future mama and future teacher just feels so accomplished for having a chance to shine, and doing so in such a valid and important way. They were so excited about starting the project, so with the idea of a next one; relieved, too, when it was over and no words had to be said for all of us to know it was a job well done. Those kids had never in their lives experienced such liberty and freedom of choice, result of artistic ways, and this whole thing, it’s undeniable, unlocked in them a whole new form of perception—of personal capability, of boundless creativity in the view of the world surrounding, of accomplishment in a deep, personal level.
When time comes, photo albums for projects like this will show up around here. For now, here’s an in-depth look into every little part of “Pretty, Terrified Flower”.
Concepts
It's a "lunette" haha get it
the signature
Close ups!
The finished thing
