Art Sticks

April 15, 2021

When I was 4, I visited a cousin's kindergarten class on a day they were drawing dinosaurs. I was excited, because I loved dinosaurs. My finished picture, though, was so far from the stegosaurus I was trying to copy that my 4-year-old self was devastated... and it was 30 years before I tried again. My parents, having no clue of the true nature of my feelings, proudly preserved the paper in a scrapbook where, unbeknownst to them, it mocked me for the rest of my childhood. Whether I was age 6, 9, 13, or beyond, Scribble Stegosaurus had the power to transport me back in time: Whenever I saw it, I'd again be 4-year-old Debbie*, who was definitely not an artist.

Tyler Nordgren is the exact age I am; while I was scribbling dinosaurs in New Jersey, he was doing the same in Alaska. Tyler, though, grew up to be an actual artist. He is most famous for his poster series for the U.S. national parks in the path of totality in the Great American Eclipse of 2017, but he does all kinds of art related to space and science. As you'll see if you browse his website, Tyler's art connects us with the past—the recent past and the distant past—and also with the future. The poster to the right is for the city of Rochester, which will be in the path of totality in 2024. So much better than mere words, Tyler's art is galvanizing Rochester residents right now, sticking them to their futures and making the eclipse real, something that can focus and motivate and inspire action today as Rochesterians get ready for the future.

The "Why ART?" question is one that many families face as their kids grow. The answer—that art sticks to souls, and connects us to our pasts, to our futures, to nature, to our better selves, and to one another, and therefore is integral to our being human—is hard to appreciate if you haven't experienced much of life. My own kids ranged from whiny to stoic at various points when we'd drag bring them to museums or galleries early on; we had better luck with other kinds of art, like music and movies, when they were small.

Thinking about talented artists like Tyler and others, and especially about the ways they make us more us, has prompted me to revisit the Deb-and-art question lately. After all, Scribble Stegosaurus turned out to be pretty powerful: If it weren't for him connecting me back to myself for decades, I likely wouldn't even be able to remember being 4. So—as horrified as I'd have been to be told this as a kid—I think Scribble Stegosaurus is actually a self-portrait, connecting who I was then to all of my future selves. So this afternoon, I'm headed to the attic! Endless dinosaur self-portraits could be buried up there.

—Deb

 (*Don't call me that now ;-) )