BABY ART
At the day care
centre the children enjoyed painting
more than any
other activity. They were the two to
four year old
children of employees of a large
computer
company.
Beverly Johnston
was an artist herself and she had the
responsibility
of keeping everyone happy. The parents
and the
children. She had attended school for art and
had specialised
in traditional art; the classics,
paintings done
hundreds of years ago. She didn't like
modern art. She
thought that the children's art was
better than the
modern art at art galleries and even
better than many
of the modern paintings at the
museum.
Beverly Johnston
gave the children all the paint they
wanted to use on
all the canvas boards that they
wanted. The
children made a mess. Beverly thought that
their paintings
were excellent. She framed the
pictures and
took them to an art gallery.
To Beverly
Johnston modern art looked like something a
two year had
done. She wanted to prove her point. She
was going to put
her day-care children's paintings
into an art
gallery. She decided not to tell anyone
what she was
doing. She wondered what would happen if
people believed
she had done them, instead of the two
and three-year
olds.
The first
gallery she went to said they were
excellent. They
wanted to do a show as soon as
possible. They
even made another artist cancel his
show so that
this new art work could be shown to the
public right
away.
On opening night
there was a large crowd of important
people. There
were newspaper reporters and television
crews to report
the art gallery's show. The next day
the world was told
about this new and important art.
Art galleries
from around the world wanted to show
Beverly Johnston's work. She had her day-care centre
children do more
and more pictures. Or what the
children saw as
paintings. The pictures were really
different coloured
blobs on canvas, usually smeared
together. Some
paintings were large - some small. She
framed every
picture. She did more and more shows.
All the money
that was made from the art shows was put
into a bank
account for the day-care centre's
children. After
all it was just a bit of fun to her. A
way to get even
with the kind of art she never liked.
Beverly Johnston
kept her secret for a year. She did
shows around the
country and three overseas. She was
on the cover of
several major magazines and was
announced as the
most important new artist of the
decade. All the
while she was laughing.
Finally she let
out the secret. She called a press
conference. On
national television with international
pickup to
countries around the world she made the
announcement
that no one really wanted to hear; that
she, Beverly
Johnston, did not do the art that was
being called,
"the best new art of the decade", it was
being done by
two and three year olds.
Many artists
from all over the world were very upset.
Especially the
ones who did modern art - and tried to
imitate 'her'
work. The artists who did traditional
paintings
laughed at the whole situation. They
understood what
Beverly Johnston was really doing.
The children at
the day-care centre all received the
money from the
art sales and they had the best
Christmas ever -
using all the money for presents.
Beverly Johnston lived happily ever-after forever.
© terrell Neuage Wednesday, 28 February 2001
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