My daughter has been an artist since she was very small, and she and her dad would paint in the mornings while I was at work. She would embark on pictures with the utmost confidence - 'I'm going to draw a tiger' - and then she would draw a tiger, and paint it too, and boom: tiger.
A while back she stopped, angrily insisting that she couldn't draw any more, it didn't work, to stop telling her she was good at art because she wasn't anymore, if she ever was. And there was no point practising as much as she'd need to to be good because she wasn't interested anyway.
For those who don't know, she has Asperger's and extreme sensory processing disorder, and is in a very stuck, locked down state - she has had no education for three years now, pretty much, other than what she finds herself. She's been stuck at home for two years, unable to wash or change while her clothes disintegrate on her.
Recently she found some old pictures in notebooks, and started showing them to me. And then she started adding to them; the miracle of Pokemon. It continues, this spark of interest.
This is not quite the gratitude I felt watching her run down a hill with her friend in the sun after two months at home unable to wear clothes several years ago - but it is deep, nonetheless, and layered.
A while back she stopped, angrily insisting that she couldn't draw any more, it didn't work, to stop telling her she was good at art because she wasn't anymore, if she ever was. And there was no point practising as much as she'd need to to be good because she wasn't interested anyway.
For those who don't know, she has Asperger's and extreme sensory processing disorder, and is in a very stuck, locked down state - she has had no education for three years now, pretty much, other than what she finds herself. She's been stuck at home for two years, unable to wash or change while her clothes disintegrate on her.
Recently she found some old pictures in notebooks, and started showing them to me. And then she started adding to them; the miracle of Pokemon. It continues, this spark of interest.
This is not quite the gratitude I felt watching her run down a hill with her friend in the sun after two months at home unable to wear clothes several years ago - but it is deep, nonetheless, and layered.
