If my destiny is sheltered
May the grace of this privilege
Reach and bless the other infants
Who are destined for torn places.
- John O’Donohue (1956 – 2008)
Summer art camp,
languid after lunch,
it’s time to explore Pop Art
with seven girls, born long after
that form was news,
and who now have forgotten
their name tags, and my memory
not what it once was.
They are diffident or fierce
pleading, as we head upstairs
Can’t we take the elevator?
Our first stop
a TV cowboy star painted astride
his white rocking horse in downtown LA,
not a sagebrush in sight.
It leaves them cold.
We’ve seen this already!
The Remington bronco in bronze
grabs their attention but soon
they plop onto comfy Museum seats,
the only objects they can touch.
Interest in art plummets.
One girl, then another, feels ill
asks to be excused, led away
by a chaperone.
Two pm
the last day of Art Camp.
It’s all old hat to them.
I suggest, The more you look
the more you’ll see.
Their eyes are hungry for what’s fresh.
Straying far from our topic,
they spot a Korean basket
of pure white porcelain
and circle it, swooning.
Next, it’s on to Japan.
Seated on the floor
we gaze at a canvas
painted just this year.
Masses of skulls and flowers
in vivid teal, magenta and anime black
bring a burst of excitement.
The small repeating circles
look like emotocons!
One girl says how death
is ever- present, even
in the midst of life and fun.
Last stop is a series
of abstract Italian prints,
lines and stripes,
pulsating colors,
a geometry of grids
and overlapping spirals.
It’s our favorite gallery!
They go on to explain
exactly what they love
about each object.
The girls are brilliant.
Claudia Lapp
2014