NORTH TONAWANDA —
As I type this, my jacket lapel is festooned with a dragonfly.
At least, I think it’s a dragonfly. It’s made of a few small pieces of lightweight wood, a “body” painted blue with green glitter and two teardrop-shaped “wings” painted yellow with squiggly lines on them. A cluster of orange and green beads embedded in glue at one end are meant to be eyes. I think.
A trace of silver paint shows where something was attached at the tail end, although that bit didn’t even make it home. Oh! Actually, maybe it’s supposed to be a firefly. Sorry, Jim.
Since my oldest son started preschool a few years ago and continued on to kindergarten, the inundation of projects hasn’t stopped. From the everyday crayon-colored pictures to the construction paper creations to the more elaborate Mother’s and Father’s day gifts (like my pin), the influx never ceases. And therein lies a dilemma.
After our elderly refrigerator died a few weeks ago, I cleaned it off in preparation for its new counterpart. The white surface was almost hidden beneath the layer of artwork:
A construction-paper Cookie Monster (with big googly eyes). A Christmas-time reindeer with a red pompom nose and traced handprint antlers. A brightly crayon-colored Very Hungry Caterpillar. A popsicle-stick-and-marker picture frame that was my husband’s Father’s Day gift back in 2007. A swirly blue ... something ... in another popsicle-stick frame.
The sad truth: Some of it had to go, both to make it possible to actually see the fridge and to make room for future creations. But what?
Could Rudolph join his paper brethren in the big box in our backroom? What about Cookie Monster and VHC? And the blue swirly thingy?
What about the clay (or paper maché, or something) blue glittery spider-like critter with pipe-cleaner legs that came home from school in June? It’s currently perched atop the dining-room hutch, looking ominously like something out of a bad Syfy channel movie.
And as that big box comes closer to overflowing ... would some of it actually have to go to the big garbage can in the sky?
The thought made me queasy. How could I throw this stuff away? This was my baby’s life we were talking about, from the first crayon-scrawled picture to the latest finger-painted masterpiece.
And now it’s starting again. Two-year-old Sam doesn’t have the benefit of school-inspired creation yet, but he’s made his own construction-paper artwork at various events. And unlike Jim, he loves to color simply for the sake of creation, sitting at the table with a fistful of crayons and blank paper, then proudly turning his rainbow somethings over for admiration.
Something had to give.
Our solution: A triage of sorts. Particularly prized creations (whether by artist or parent) get pride of place on the fridge or a similar area. For example, the frame (and the reindeer) still grace the new appliance. My pin, likewise, isn’t going anywhere.
Eventually these favorites will wind up in the boys’ scrapbooks, or the big box, for saving for future posterity, which is also where second-tier artwork winds up.
And some of it, yes, will hit the recycling bin. But only after being duly admired, and only if it’s not a particular favorite of the artist.
And the spider still hits on the hutch. I find I’ve gotten used to it.
Jill Keppeler is a page designer and columnist for the Tonawanda News. She can be reached at jill.keppeler@tonawanda-news.com.
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