Vagina - well we all know what a vagina is - even my almost five and a half year old knows. When she and her little sister take a bath, it doesn't go unnoticed, especially if somewhere in the process they see their dad make a pee-pee in the potty & they are faced with the opposite appendage. And though she doesn't entirely understand what it's for, the vagina has certainly made it's way into the psyche of my 5-year old.
So, I guess we shouldn't have been surprised when C came home from Grace Art Camp with a bag full of art that included the mysterious genital. The theme for the week was Denmark & the children did art work based on a Hans Christian Andersen fable about a princess and her 11 prince-brothers who had been turned into swans. As we praised C's sweet little drawings of crowns, princes and what-not, we stopped a bit short when we pulled out the next "what-not," which was a ceramic sculpture of yes, you guessed it - a vagina. Actually, it was a "swan"-- and it vaguely looked like a swan -- only the top of the swan was unambiguously a (ahem) labia with painted feathers. To be fair, it had a little pointed head with dots for eyes, but that could be interpreted another way, I suppose... N and I suppressed giggles and our innocent C (after glowingly telling us about her swan sculpture) moved on to show us the rest of her art -- a felt puppet, a refrigerator magnet, and her very own personal coloring book.
I suppose if artists like Georgia O'Keeffe can paint flowers in which admirers patently see vaginas, then somewhere in our collective psyches the female sex organ begs to be represented. I mean, even if you take Freud out of the picture, few would argue the ubiquity of the phallic symbol. But leave it to a cherubic 5-year old to tap into such a powerful icon, which certainly must've given her camp counselors a chuckle when they pulled it out of the kiln.
For right now the little vaginal swan sits on our kitchen counter to get lost among the clutter until we get bit by another organizing bug. It will probably then make it's way around our house to be re-discovered from time to time, at which points I would love to be a fly on the wall watching whomever examines it. Will they chuckle? Will they blush a little? Hopefully it won't horrify anyone with puritanical sensibilities. The most curious moment of re-discovery will be when C picks up her little art camp memento when she's a bit older (a good bit older;-) and the light of recognition goes off in her head. And when it does, will she chuckle? I hope so. Will she blush? I hope so.
So, I guess we shouldn't have been surprised when C came home from Grace Art Camp with a bag full of art that included the mysterious genital. The theme for the week was Denmark & the children did art work based on a Hans Christian Andersen fable about a princess and her 11 prince-brothers who had been turned into swans. As we praised C's sweet little drawings of crowns, princes and what-not, we stopped a bit short when we pulled out the next "what-not," which was a ceramic sculpture of yes, you guessed it - a vagina. Actually, it was a "swan"-- and it vaguely looked like a swan -- only the top of the swan was unambiguously a (ahem) labia with painted feathers. To be fair, it had a little pointed head with dots for eyes, but that could be interpreted another way, I suppose... N and I suppressed giggles and our innocent C (after glowingly telling us about her swan sculpture) moved on to show us the rest of her art -- a felt puppet, a refrigerator magnet, and her very own personal coloring book.
I suppose if artists like Georgia O'Keeffe can paint flowers in which admirers patently see vaginas, then somewhere in our collective psyches the female sex organ begs to be represented. I mean, even if you take Freud out of the picture, few would argue the ubiquity of the phallic symbol. But leave it to a cherubic 5-year old to tap into such a powerful icon, which certainly must've given her camp counselors a chuckle when they pulled it out of the kiln.
For right now the little vaginal swan sits on our kitchen counter to get lost among the clutter until we get bit by another organizing bug. It will probably then make it's way around our house to be re-discovered from time to time, at which points I would love to be a fly on the wall watching whomever examines it. Will they chuckle? Will they blush a little? Hopefully it won't horrify anyone with puritanical sensibilities. The most curious moment of re-discovery will be when C picks up her little art camp memento when she's a bit older (a good bit older;-) and the light of recognition goes off in her head. And when it does, will she chuckle? I hope so. Will she blush? I hope so.
No comments:
Post a Comment