From the Archives - Irksome Little Pony

Introduction

Recently I was struggling (audibly, possibly profanely) with a teapot; I cannot pour from it without spilling.  My wife said, “Hey, I like that teapot—don’t go ‘Diaper Genie’ on it.”  She was referring to when, as a new parent,  I lost my temper over our diaper pail and hurled it down the stairs.  (To this day I feel my action was justified.  A “friend” had given us a lightly used Diaper Genie, which—despite having its original box, so it could be passed off as new—wasn’t compatible with the modern bag/liner cartridge it came with, so in trying to install the cartridge I was unknowingly attempting the impossible.)

As maddening as baby-related accessories can be, parenting itself can be even tougher.  Read on for the tale of how I came this close to executing improper parenting techniques.  This was at Target, where I came into contact with the retail equivalent of an Improvised Explosive Device.

November 8, 2003 - Irksome Little Pony

Today I took Alexa [age 2 at this point] to Target to get a new Diaper Genie.  (The manufacturer stopped making cartridges for our old one.)  I had my wife make a list of other stuff to buy.  “DVD entertainment” was not on the list, but I headed over to the Audio/Video section first thing anyway.  I’m getting tired of Alexa’s meager video library and I must confess, I’ve been so tired lately I’ve been letting her watch non-child oriented fare, like Bond movies.

Of course, the vast majority of Target’s inventory of child-oriented videos are crap, like Barney, the cloying purple dinosaur, and the Teletubbies, those really uncanny, creepy little . . . heck, I don’t know what to call them.  Gnomes, I guess, with TVs built into their bellies.  They give me the willies.  Alexa watches them occasionally at day care, alas, and seems to love them just like the rest of the kids do.  That’s probably the creepiest part.  I mean, I can see why she likes Wallace and Gromit; they’re neat-looking, and there’s lots of action.  But Teletubbies?  These creatures seem barely smarter than cows.  They can’t even talk; they’re just like little pawns.

And don’t get me started on “Baby Mozart,” “Baby Shakespeare,” and “Baby Einstein,” which masquerade as educational fare but actually feature totally dippy, non-name-brand music with the camera panning lovingly over still-lifes of bright new toys, like a damn product catalog.  Over my dead body.  I’d rather put “Dr. No” in again and explain to Alexa, “See?  The woman is sleeping,” and hope that my innocent daughter doesn’t yet understand what gunfire is.

In the video aisle somebody had abandoned a little toy.  Alexa, sitting in the shopping cart seat, legs swinging, immediately became enchanted with it.  I grabbed it, out of idle curiosity, and discovered it was a Poky Little Pony.  I only have a vague awareness of Poky Little Pony.  I’m guessing this toy is an offshoot of a kid’s book.  This one had a fancy mane, made to seem like human hair, and came with a little choking-hazard toy brush and some other stuff.  The accessories were lashed firmly to the packaging, so I figured Alexa couldn’t do much damage to Poky or herself, and I let her play with it while I looked for the video.  (I decided to indulge her partly because she was running a bit ragged; last night was rough, and she was a bit late for her afternoon nap.) 

Alexa struggled in vain to remove Poky from the package.  “Help, Daddy,” she said.  I tried to ignore this, but when she dug deep and came out with, “Help, Daddy, please,” I was so won over by the lessons she’d learned—don’t just scream; ask for help; say please—that I relented and freed Poky.  (After all, some other kid had already ripped open the package and abandoned it in the DVD section.  This was a problem already in motion.)

Man, what a lame toy.  The head didn’t even turn.  No small child could be interested in this toy for more than five minutes.  Or am I underestimating children?  I guess a bright kid could figure out a new, illicit way to have fun with Poky (e.g., taunt a less privileged child with it; try to eat its head; tear out its hair; use it as a spoon; slather it with model airplane cement and torch it).  But of course Alexa loved Poky, and instantly memorized his/her name, turning this name into a mantra as we continued our shopping.

[I guess I should point out that, as I discovered years later, the pony isn’t actually named “Poky.”  It’s called “My Little Pony” and actually there are lots of different ones, with names like Blue Bell, Snuzzle, and Skydancer.  My bad.  I’d seen a New Yorker cartoon showing hip-hop revisions of children’s books, one of which featured Jay-Z fronting The Poky Little Posse.  I thought “Posse” was replacing “Pony” but it’s actually making fun of Poky Little Puppy, apparently some classic children’s book.  So my daughter—oblivious, at this age, of the need to second-guess me—blithely accepted that the horse’s name was Poky.]

After getting the modern Diaper Genie and other items, there was just one more thing to do before checking out:  return Poky.  I vainly hoped Alexa would be excited enough by the new synthetic fireproof blanket I’d put in our cart that she’d forget about the stupid toy, but instead she—adorably—put it to bed on the blanket.  Man.  I can’t think of a more volatile situation than bringing a toddler to the Toys section of Target.  I was tempted to abandon my daughter in some boring aisle, like linens, and then return Poky on my own.  You know, surgical—get in, make the drop, get out.  But this is America, which means if I left Alexa alone for even a second, she would either be abducted, or—worse—somebody would find her, turn her in to the authorities, and I’d end up doing time for abandoning her.

I cursed myself silently for allowing things to escalate like this.  My wife would have never snatched up Poky in the first place.  Heck, she probably wouldn’t have been in the video aisle to begin with—she’d be getting the things on the actual list.  But I’m a softie.  Besides, I’d deluded myself that Alexa would quickly exhaust her joy over Poky, and we as a family would enjoy all the benefits of having actually bought it, with none of the expense, clutter, or model-airplane-cement infernos.  On some subconscious level, I must have convinced myself that if Alexa and I made enough of these shrewd moves, over time, we’d eventually rule the galaxy as father and daughter—Alexa drawing from all the novel stimulation she’d had as a kid, and me drawing from the vast financial empire I’d built up from all the money I didn’t waste.  But instead, I found myself rolling Alexa toward what I feared would be my Waterloo.

I was tempted to employ trickery to save the situation.   But I hate to manipulate a child.  After all, it’s not really fair, given my vast advantage of life experience, to take advantage of young naivety.  Besides, there are so many ways such trickery can fail. 

For one, what if your manipulation doesn’t come off?  That can be humbling.  I’ve tried many times to outsmart the cat—to trick her into coming over by pretending I have food, for example—and she’s looked at me with a feline expression that says, “Exactly how stupid do you think I am?”  Or there was the time I tried to outsmart my niece Lonneke, when she was Alexa’s age.  Lonneke had discovered the TV remote control and was annoying me with it, changing the volume and the channel, etc., so I took the batteries out.  She came after the batteries and I freely gave them to her, figuring that she’d never figure out how to reinstall them in the remote anyway.  I figured wrong.

Another problem with manipulation is that it can give the manipulator, if he’s successful, a touch of contempt for the manipulated.  For example, many times I’ve pretended to throw a stick for a dog, who stupidly runs out to catch it, and then looks all over the sky for it, then starts sniffing all over the ground for it, while I’m standing there still holding the stick, shaking my head.  After the tenth fake throw in a row, as the dog is still gamely running for a phantom stick, I’m completely disgusted with the entire canine kingdom.  I’d hate to draw subconscious conclusions about my own child based on my ability to easily deceive her. 

Third, there’s a guilt problem:  taking advantage of the trust of your own child, and abusing that trust for short-term gain, could easily gnaw on a guy, at least a softie like myself. 

Finally, perhaps most importantly, if you underestimate your kid, a lame attempt at subterfuge could insult her intelligence.  Sure, I might trick the kid when she’s too young to know any better, but that doesn’t mean she won’t remember what happened and put it all together later.  Then she’ll realize what a dick I was, and be suspicious of the more sophisticated deceptions I might be employing later on.

So I stopped the stroller at the end of the Toys aisle (though I pointed it away from the goods).  I asked Alexa to hold the video, and then asked her to hold the fireproof blanket.  Little kids are always so eager to help out, especially when it means holding things.  (I guess the novelty of effectively employing one’s newly prehensile hands takes awhile to wear off.)  Then, Alexa’s hands being full, I took Poky. 

This was the key moment where I forever defined who and what I would be as a parent.  To take Poky without Alexa noticing would be manipulation.  But by distracting her somewhat, I theorized, I could mitigate her sense of loss, and do so without trickery by announcing what I was doing.  “Here, I’ll take Poky,” I said, loud and clear.  And of course she immediately began yelling in protest.  While Alexa yelled, I spun around, located Poky’s clones, reunited “our” Poky with them, and took a moment to satisfy my curiosity about the price ($4.99) before returning to the cart.  Within a minute or so Alexa had basically calmed down.  Sure, the loss wasn’t forgotten; for several hours she kept asking where Poky went, but never did throw the tantrum I’d so dreaded.

I have concluded that Alexa is not (yet) a spoiled rotten brat, but she’s not (yet) a beaten-down, joyless automaton either.  Heck, maybe I actually played the whole thing perfectly.  She derived 90% of the joy and mental stimulation the toy is capable of providing (the other 10% being the use of the hairbrush, which I’d flat refused to remove from the packaging).  I’d survived a battlefield test of my parenting tactics and ideals.  Alexa, for her part, had a not-so-painful lesson in the sad fact that you can’t always get what you want.  And if Target runs out of non-tampered-with Pokies, I’m sure some harried parent will shell out $4.99 for the one with the slightly damaged box.

From the Archives - Critique of Alexa's Early Art

Introduction

We got a new fridge. The State of California had a fat rebate set up for purchasers of Energy Star fridges, and that might have been nice except the fridge we needed—short enough to fit under our cabinet—wasn’t on the approved list, though it’s Energy Star certified. There’s a process to add the fridge to the list, but the deadline for doing so preceded the announcement of the rebate itself: a nice Catch-22. So we bought the fridge anyway (our old one was drooling all over our food) and did without a rebate. Thanks for nothing, California!

Part of breaking in a new fridge is, of course, the Kids’ Art Installation. Lindsay had a nice new piece that was too large for the front, so I put it around the side, where it was spattered with spaghetti sauce from the nearby stove until I removed it, and it's now gone missing. D’oh! Here are a couple of the works we have up front now:

Serving as curator for this new fridge exhibit made me think of Alexa’s very first major work, which she completed at age two. In general the public’s response to this work was positive, but one major critic, my friend Michael, was fairly critical of it. I get that being critical is his job as a critic (albeit an amateur one), but I thought he missed some of the artistic nuances of the work. What follows is his critique, and also my response, which ended up blossoming into a full-fledged exegesis of Alexa’s drawing and her artistic sensibility in general.

The work

Happy Face by Alexa Albert. 2004. Mixed Media (digital photo, plastic and magnets). The Museum of CAlbert Art, Albany, California.

The critique – January 27, 2004

I think the use of color needs development. Form and style are good but the inclination toward avant is so euro-yesterday. i'm impressed with the texture--the play toward the pixelization look--but feel the minimalist approach is just not in tune with contemporary artistic values. in essence, the artist appears immature in her approach and execution; however, there are some encouraging attributes warranting encouragement.

My response – January 28, 2004

Your analysis is generally quite valid, but if I may say, you fail to fully consider the context in which we should view this work. Sure, if you came upon it in a gallery, little more could really be said about the fresh young talent who created it. But naturally there is a school of art criticism that goes beyond the surface and considers the context, the background, the circumstantial and sociological texture, if you will, of the art and its artist. From this perspective, the work embodies much more than a quick glance can appreciate.

Young Albert is making grand statements with this early piece. Certainly there is a brashness here, some would even say an insolence or iconoclasm, given the relative lack of education of the artist, in this case a relative autodidact who has never apprenticed to a master and frankly ignores, or even denies, contemporary or historical influences. And yet the treatment of subject here is, above all else, ironic, and throws a harsh light on the current art scene and, indeed, the current psychological and emotional landscape of our time.

You mention the sparse use of color: exactly her point. Her choice of medium, and her truncated palette within that medium, are the equivalent of making an expensive color photocopy of a black-and-white original. (An architecture student I know once played with this as well.) And though you seem to appreciate her experiments in pixilation, perhaps you haven’t fully realized the depth of her statement: she had to know that her picture, coarsely drawn though it is, would be captured with a 2.1 megapixel digital camera. She’s actually bridging the pointillism school (exemplified by Georges Seurat and his followers in late 19th-century France) to the present, invoking the oil-and-water clash between warm French beauty and cold American technology.

Certainly it could be said that young Albert should master the technical aspects of her craft before embarking on grand statements. After all, Picasso almost certainly could have painted in the soulless but technically adept Norman Rockwell style before moving on to the experimentation that become Cubism. One could accuse Albert of not actually recognizing that the nose is between the two eyes and not off to one side, challenging the idea that she is deliberately skewing the loci as did her famous predecessor. But that would be false: she has been able to identify the nose, her own or another person’s, for well over a year, and always points to the right place. (Indeed, the work in question shows a strong command of locus, even if the nose itself is lacking in definition.)

Can’t we forgive Albert’s refusal to get bogged down in technical skill-building when she has so much bottled up, that yearns for alternative modes of expression? This is a person whose entire life has taken place post-9/11. She has never known a government that wasn’t steeped in cynicism and at odds with its society. This is a sensitive soul whose first exposure to mass media included the Teletubbies, those uncanny, unsettling, inexplicable creatures that exist as if to fly in the face of decent artistic temperaments. Sure, Albert’s work may be titled “Happy Face,” but it cannot be an accident that the face is sticking its tongue out at the viewer, as if to say, “I see your cracked polystyrene world and I raise you one flip gesture.”

You charge that the work is avant and euro-yesterday? Exactly Albert’s point: a half-rhetorical question, “Wouldn’t it be nice to revert to an earlier time, and a less crapola culture?” And her refusal to sync up with contemporary artistic values is, above all, an attempt to put the kibosh on our entire shattered American era, art and all, since she can’t cherry-pick what beauty still remains.

Of course it’s still irresponsible and myopic to say she has no influences. Her parents, totally unrecognized by the contemporary art world and for good reason, have taught her every poor technique in the book, and make matters worse by choosing uninspired subject matters for their own art: cats, babies, simple geometric forms that are easy for the untalented to draw. This early exposure has combined with young Albert’s emotional and intellectual underpinnings to establish backlash as a fundamental—if not the fundamental—basis of her oeuvre. Consider the haphazard geometry of “Happy Face.” A slap in the face of realism? Or a realistic representation of a face that’s been slapped? That eye on the right: is it crying? Or does it have an “owie”? (Could it even be based on Albert’s growing understanding that her sister was born with a cataract?) Moving across the (virtual) canvas, we see an irregular form above the eye on the left. A cloud? A hematoma? Why should an ostensibly happy face cause us to ponder such questions?

The answer can, arguably, be given in two words: Thomas Kinkade. Yes, as if Albert’s worldview wasn’t tainted enough by 9/11 and the Teletubbies, she was also exposed to a Kinkade “painting,” reproduced in an advertisement (for Kinkade-branded merchandise) in “Parade” magazine, irresponsibly left around the house with no regard for the possibility of this impressionable young artist seeing it. It is entirely possible—and hideous to contemplate—that Albert is unaware of the almost universal disdain for Kinkade; after all, no two-year-old can be expected to have followed what criticism the art world has bothered to throw in Kinkade’s direction. How could she feel anything but disgust for her fellow man, believing that Kinkade is not just a commercial but a critical success?

We could well expect a less cynical approach were Albert to have read Joan Didion’s latest book, Where I Was From, in which Didion snarls that Kinkade’s “paintings” are “of such insistent coziness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel.” (A perfectly appropriate analogy in this case, as young Albert possesses the juicy, sausage-like calves that to a bloodlusting witch would make Hansel and Gretel look, in comparison, like dried-out jerky.) Given this strong dose of grotesquery, and the idea that Kincade is accepted by the art world, any artistic sentiment could be expected to turn immediately to bold, raw, intentionally non-cozy images. Built atop Albert’s other influences, this Kinkade exposure may indeed have been the straw that broke the camel’s back and sent her fleeing to an artistic realm that William Blake might have inhabited had he been painting two centuries later and for “Mad” magazine.

Of course, after such contextual flights of fancy, we must always return to the work itself. And there is certainly room for growth, for maturity, for greater depth in Albert’s work. But if you’d viewed it as the artist had intended—for just a few seconds, before it was wiped out by magnetic eraser wielded by the artist herself—you’d have a better sense for its transitional, flash-of-consciousness intent, its post-MTV artistic-pulse sensibility. By photographing it, I have falsely imbued it with an intellectual permanence, and invitation for study, that were not mine to give. Young Albert is a highly experimental artist-in-transition, and only when she turns her full attention to other media—crayon, ink, clay, paint, motion-picture, holographs, mindoplastiform—will she offer us the kind of craft we can endlessly explore, that will give the true measure of her talent and ambition. dana albert blog