The Nth time I stopped the kids from flinging acrylic shells at the wall, my heart actually gave up. There were only two tasks to follow, be careful not to let them put hurt themselves. Protect the paintings on the front door that the adults had painted.
Adults are like that. They know kids won’t listen, but they can’t help but scream a few things. For example, Turan, acrylics are expensive. If you brush it down, you’ll lose tens of dollars. Yao Yao, watch the people. Arnold, look at your face. Dulan, Dingdong, be careful not to spill it.
Duo was practically an angel. She crouched under another wall and quietly tried to apply a little bit of white and light pink acrylic. Of course, she was the big kid.
(Unfortunately, it’s still posted as an advertisement)
Actually acrylics are not that expensive. This is Songzhuang, I can go out and buy all kinds of paints in 5 minutes by bike. Coke-can sized acrylics only cost 10 bucks a can, and brushes, the smallest ones cost 1 buck a piece. I grabbed a handful of brushes and there were about 10 of them.
It’s a bit of a pain in the ass to buy these materials in town, huh?
Of course, the bigger problem is, where do you go to paint after you buy it, honey?
Did you apply to the property yet, honey?
I’ve been having thoughts about painting on walls and doors. We drew them before last Spring, using crayons. Then my old husband erased the ducks we drew and the poem I wrote on the door, leaving a blessing. It makes sense, his generation never had personal expression that could be seen on the walls outside of the home.
(Our family painting and writing on the door in Spring 2018)
There are pros in the neighborhood group. I’m not even sure what kind of paint to use for painting. Yao Yao’s mom said acrylic is best, she has some at home and will bring it over then. And we have another killer, Brother Si Mao. I love his paintings. If I had money, there are two people whose paintings I’d like to collect, one of him and one who runs a tavern.
Before Yao Yao came, the children used chalk and crayons to draw on the walls, doors and trees. Fourth Brother kept drawing lotus flowers, almost covering the wall. Of course, the lotuses ended up hidden under the acrylic lumps.
I think it’s pretty good too.
We moved a small table out of the yard and set it up with buckets of water for shabbling brushes, palettes and brushes of all sizes and acrylic mixes in almost 7 colors.
Nice start.
I wrote three big words on the door, two winds.
(Note: Two winds drilled in, carrying rain instead of olive branches. This has got to be the most awesome sentence I’ve ever written in my life, so please allow me to HIGH myself for a moment.)
At the time, I didn’t realize that this painting event would become a small-scale, ground encounter. Yes, the biggest takeaway from this event was that the kids were able to turn everything into a battle. The paints were ammunition and the brushes were guns. They attack the wall in a frenzy, point-blank shooting and bombing. Acrylic paints blossomed on the wall. To hell with the color palette.
Fortunately, the battlefield was contained to the wall that was plastered with advertisements for air conditioning repairs.
Momma Dodger and Momma Tinkerbell and Momma Arnold they held the gate in the next battle and stopped several raids by the kids. They made the gate beautiful. Mmm, praise them.
It’s worth noting, though, that main gunner Turan had a last-minute burst of inspiration and switched from dropping acrylic bombs to drawing curves on the wall. He’s starting to get a sense of line, happy.
The smoke cleared and the children went to the yard to clean the paint off their bodies. Fourth Brother was outside cleaning up the battlefield. I watched from the sidelines. Watching him little by little transform a dragon from the dark green battlefield (don’t ask me why it’s dark green, I don’t know). The acrylic lumps that fell on the ground were picked up to become dragon claws and clouds.
Interesting.
I can’t draw. I can’t draw anything. In fact, when the kids were fighting, I hid in front of a wall and thought about what to draw, right behind Dodo. And here’s what happened.
A final digression.
A child’s drawing is the best art. I’ve always found this statement to be something that mall third floor painting and drawing training facilities use to fool parents. It’s valid, but not scientific. Methodology is not the same as value. Art requires a combination of technique and reflection. The child himself is not self-conscious enough even if he is artistic.
A couple of kids had a hard painting session outside our front door, which proved, haha, that I was right. And this event should have actually been better designed.
I don’t expect my kids to be artistic either, if they are interested, they are interested, and it doesn’t matter if they aren’t. Expression is more important than skill.
I’ve seen so many examples of this before abroad, such as the Berlin building with a whole wall painted over. Arabs scribbling on walls. The Boca district of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has all kinds of bright walls painted in saturated colors.
We actually have expressions here, word removal, licenses, and small ads. The most numerous advertisement on my wall is for air conditioning repair. It’s the private sector and it’s an underground private sector expression, I guess. (Does this vote count as Informal Sector as they say in sociology?)
And, of course, there are those slogans of XXX proclamations everywhere.
The most horrifying street expression I’ve ever seen was Twenty-Four Filial Prayers, in the Sanlitun and Changying area. I had the urge to go up there and pee.
Previously at Caixin World Speak, we had a New Year’s Eve event where we had our buddies find their own places to do graffiti. My wonderful coworkers who were in Beijing in the middle of the night also, well, they doodled FREEDOM or something like that. Shame I didn’t go with them.
Yes, I didn’t expect the kids to draw anything, I just wanted to show them that the wall could have been expressive, no big deal.
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