Drama at Borders

Today I took the day off, being the second day after Christmas. We went to the bookstore since it seems to have something for everyone. I was with Tallie, Caleb, and Karina in the kids book and toy section. Then Karina needed to go piddle and Tallie piped up saying she knew where to go and could take her there. I thought it would be good for Tallie to take some responsibility for her sister and help her out….so off they go to the little girls’ room. I stand outside a few yards reading a magazine.

Next thing I hear Tallie hollering in the bathroom, “I need help…dad, help.” And Karina is yelling in a distressed voice, “help, I did a poopie.” “She pooped on the ground.”
     “Well, help her out,” I said. “I can’t do it” Tallie yells in a distressed voice. By now she is feeling overwhelmed with the grave burden of it all. So I tell her to come to the door and ask her if there is anyone else in there. It’s clear so I move in. Poor Karina is squatting on the floor by the toilet. Crap is smeared on the lid of the toilet seat and down the side and a nice pile is sitting on the floor at it’s base. It took a few minutes of scrubbing amidst distressed explanations in gurgled English of what happened. I finished cleaning up the floor, toilet and my daughter while reassuring her over and over that everything was just fine, everything normal. I mean what could be more natural?

Meanwhile the door opens and someone else comes in. I hear Tallie explaining to a woman that her dad is in there helping her little sister in the bathroom. We wait til we’re alone and walk out, wash hands and carry on with an uneventful day.

Quotes about art

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Pablo Picasso

-Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

-Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

-Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

-Everything you can imagine is real.

-God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.

-I don’t own any of my own paintings because a Picasso original costs several thousand dollars and that’s a luxury I cannot afford.

-No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.

-Painting is a blind man’s profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

-The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.

-We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Pablo Picasso

When I was the age of these children could draw like Raphael: it took me many years to learn how to draw like these children.
Pablo Picasso

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
Robert Bresson