'My dad always treated me like a fellow artist, creating myself,' writes A.W. Davis.
, my father nurtured his own artist’s dream. Even when his mother died of cancer his senior year of high school—which was the same year his brother came home shell-shocked from Vietnam and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, the same year my mom became pregnant with my oldest brother. The dream was deferred, but it would not dry out.
In first grade, my class did paintings of tepees. On Back to School Night, the biggest and brightest would be showcased in the front. Starting out, I did what everyone else had: a brown triangle, spiky top. But I kept going. The triangle became an hourglass filled with red moons, blue suns, zigzags, yellow polka dots. It was … something.
I was bursting to hear my father’s review of my first group show, certain it was front and center, the parents all gathered around it breathlessly, like the crowd viewing the. It was not in the front, though, or even in the back—but in the way back, by the bathroom. I was devastated. Of course, my parents hugged me and said that they’d loved it, that it was different and that that was what made it beautiful, and so on.
At school I encountered kids whose parents treated them like their own creations, possessions to be controlled, with corresponding expectations about how they should be. I developed a new appreciation for my dad, who always treated me like a fellow artist, creating myself. I came to see my life as a work in progress, to surprise myself with my choices, to work with my mistakes.
“You love it?” he asked. I did. “Well, there you go. You love it, do it. You’ll figure out the rest.” He didn’t offer me a loan, or even a real answer. He simply told me what he’d been showing me my whole life: to use my imagination, to follow my heart, and that beauty is its own reason. I bought the piece, of course, and it now hangs in the most prominent place in my house, above the fireplace.Allison Davis is a television writer.
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