Awesomeness is Free of Charge

Joanna appreciates Aidan’s artistic choices, and he never lets us forget how important it is for him to work unfettered by our ideas of what he should do (“Here, paint a frame and we’ll take a picture of you goofing around in order to manufacture some positive memories of your ersatz incarceration in the hospital”).

Instead, Aidan needs to be allowed to have his own vision, and if anything will in fact make his experience here more positive, it is exactly that. With so few choices in his world, his creative works are entirely his and he has become accustomed to owning that space. I would say that we are happy to hand over the deed, but it was never ours in the first place.

Aidan has so far engaged in two painting projects with Joanna. The first is an image borrowed from the Mario Brothers games, a red-and-white mushroom. He explained that the giant mushrooms make you giant, and the tiny ones make you tiny. This is itself a concept borrowed from Alice in Wonderland, but never mind.

Philosophically, the mushroom is simplistic in a developmentally appropriate way. Aidan likes video games, etc. etc.

However, I particularly enjoy the syringe painting, a later endeavor that is not typical of most syringe paintings. Joanna set up an ample drop cloth and encouraged him to go to town, splattering and making an enormous adult-sanctioned mess. However, he demurred, preferring instead to meticulously apply paint and blend colors according to his own design.

The result is an intriguing blend of color and texture. Aidan’s original aim is unclear, though possibly (probably) a robot or ship of some kind.

For adults, this piece evokes many different images. The Friday volunteer suggested the Cathedral at Chartres. Joanna had a different idea, which I can’t remember at the moment.

For whatever reason, it is interesting to look at. The effect of the paint is certainly unintentional, as Aidan has never done a syringe painting before. The darkness of the colors is characteristic of children’s painting, which often gets muddy and dark through the overapplication of disparate paint colors. This seems particularly true among boys, who seem more likely to smush or overpaint in an effort to instill a new color.

Even so, Aidan’s precision in his work yields certain intentional results. There is no paint at all in blank of the canvas, and he effectively clarifies the edges from the middle.

Often, Aidan gets frustrated when he has difficulty manifesting an internal vision. Uneven lines, stray marks, mismatched edges can make him gruff and inclined to scrap a project. Perhaps he is learning to enjoy experimentation with new materials and methods, or perhaps this was close enough to what he imagined to satisfy him.

At home, he is embarking on a film project using our old camera. The subject involves a troop of Star Wars Lego minifigures and a small acrylic box of Mexican Jumping Beans I picked up at the airport in Washington (FYI, the perfect gift for any five-year-old). He plans to use the Lego Star Wars game on his Nintendo DS to generate the soundtrack.

St. Jude does provide a good opportunity for Aidan to explore his interest in visual arts. It also serves the function of allowing him a form of expression and control. Although St. Jude does not typically display the artwork of siblings or have an area dedicated to that cause, Joanna said she can claim some wall space in the E clinic (brain tumor) for Aidan’s work. Whether public display is important to him or not is unclear, but it will be satisfying nonetheless, at least for his proud parents.

We look forward to posting Aidan’s video when it becomes available or other projects that he is working on. He is living proof that, just as Kung Fu Panda said, awesomeness is free of charge.