on grandchildren – Wilf Thust

Grandparents

I am called Gramps.

How do I make my artistic inputs and thoughts worthwhile ? Are there expectations ?
What do I feel to be useful for ?

Do I envy Granny (my wife) being the centre of attention ? Does she fulfill all needs of worms and practical help ?
Have I got a gender specific function ?

What approach from others makes me feel good? How to avoid anger and misunderstanding?
How to overcome the fear of doing something wrong with the children?

Do I have to make an effort to be recognised as who I am ? Shall I play the artist, teacher or hard to know man ?
How open should I be with hang up signs of “ Old Age “ ? Are there hidden aspects of my self confidence ?
Do I want respect ?

What approach from others makes me feel good? How to avoid anger and misunderstanding?
How to overcome the fear of doing something wrong with the children?

ON Gramps, son and grandson

MY son climbed into a tree with His 3 year old son. The Young one up in the air, the Old one, me, down on the ground, both of us somehow scared and elated.

When My son was three years old I gave him (and me) three words to make up stories before going to sleep.
My son, being over 40 now, elaborated on this and brought the idea to perfection. My grandson took up this trade.
He favours stories of his dad to mine. Bless him, I understand but it made me somehow jealous.
I waited then for a chance to take up this challenge in my way. In the midst of a turbulent time in our family over Christmas I suggested storytelling that involves some kind of physical action between me and my grandson.

I thought about a monster as a creature in a tree,

an eagle kind of bird, a boy able to run fast

and a precious colourful spider that shines in the dark.

I found some cardboard folders that I had collected in a box in our “Megashed” as we call it. Very quickly without much planning I took a pair of scissors and cut a round hedgeshock with a saw like edge out of a black card and then cut two wings and a bird‘s body and legs with red claws out of a green and red sheet and then cut the body, legs, arms and hands for a figure of a young person out of red cards and put these parts together with fasteners. I called the black creature the Bear Ball,
the flying bird the Scary Wings, the running person the Bolt Boy
and the spider I had found in the shed the Beaming Spy.

Then I cut a carpet sized shape from a roll of newsprint paper that I could roll out like a carpet for sketches using a few big felt tips.
I reappeared in the big living room of our barn where everybody gathered. The room is a kind of belly for all our meetings and for everybody who is invited to join in.

I waited for a moment to suggest my story telling. When I got the green light from my son I sat down on the floor moving my Bolt Boy to walk towards a tree that I sketched in seconds and got him to climb. But I put Bear Ball into the top as if he had sat there already. Moving Bolt Boy running away, as I am drawing outlines of his body in action, left traces of his escape on the paper. I asked my grandchild what he thinks should happen next and carried on with my acting and shouting to move Bolt Boy to hide. To my surprise he took the Scary Bird and swung the wings and ran through the room with great excitement and again and again demonstrating the power of the evil bird sent from the top of the tree.

Then I cut a carpet sized shape from a roll of newsprint paper that I could roll out like a carpet for sketches using a few big felt tips. I put everything in a folder and reappeared in the big living room of our barn where everybody gathered. This room is a kind of belly for all of our meetings and for everybody who is invited to join in.

I waited for a moment to suggest my story telling. When I got the green light from my son I sat down on the floor moving my Boltboy to walk towards a tree that I sketched in seconds and got him to climb . But I put Bearball into the top as if he had sat there already.

Moving Bolt boy running and drawing outlines of his body in action left traces of his escape on the paper. I asked my grandchild what he thinks should happen next and carried on with my acting and shouting and moving Boltboy to hide. What a surprise, my grandchild took the Scary bird and swung the wings and ran through the room with great excitement and again and again demonstrating the evil bird sent from the top of the tree.

Then I cut a carpet sized shape from a roll of newsprint paper that I could roll out like a carpet for sketches using a few big felt tips.

I reappeared in the big living room of our barn where everybody gathered. The room is a kind of belly for all our meetings and for everybody who is invited to join in.

I turned the area into an island with bushes and more trees to hide or sit on and to linger. Then I waited for a next surprise, the reaction to the spider. But that wasn’t to happen. The story went on but ended with Bolt Boy holding the Spid in his hands and peacefully sitting next to Bear Ball in the tree top.

The joint performances carried on, a combination of wild action, sounds and thoughts of all kinds from all of us in the room.

All this happened in December 2021

T HE K I T E

On another visit in July 2023 my grandchild had changed.
I knew from visits before how much he likes to come up to the Barn.
But I also know that he wouldn’t make any effort to show this, at least not to me.
So it was this time, but – sadly – we didn’t even bang our fists together. He left me breaking my head to come up with the right thing to do. But observing him I noticed that the nicest thing to do – at least on a holiday – for him is to roam about. He notices all sort of unexpected things.

Funny, I so much support this – up to – an extent – to a limit.
I like to be involved. I like to know the story behind his findings and also some feeling that it is me who is looking after him.

But then … it was him playing me. All of a sudden he came, holding with both hands, parts of a wasp nest. And he knew what it was. He must have come across it before.

I obviously wanted to know where he found this. He went to an old chicken hut standing outside my studio, a left over from a chicken garden we had years ago. He opened the door climbing over chicken droppings and to this fragile ball structured architectural masterpiece. I had kept one of these pieces for years, before it fell apart.
I had picked ripe apples a year ago and stepped into a nest. A horde of wasps followed me on my run to safety. Still throughout the winter I come across big queens in our bedroom. Nobody could explain to me how they could have got there. But my grandchild is right without saying it, there is always lots to discover.

And back to him.

I suddenly thought about something that would interest him, based on the material I had used two years before, I kept a box of empty folders that are colourful and easy to cut. Some weeks ago I saw a red kite, sensationally coloured gliding above the barn. I never saw this again, it must have something to do with the mowing of the huge grassfield right next to us, that gave the bird access to mice and moles. To my surprise on a sunday trip I discovered a postcard of this bird in flying position.

I showed this to my boy. Would you like to make a flying kite like the one on the postcard ? I heard a YES and off we went to the workshed. I layed the coloured cardboards out and showed him how to cut very simply a wings.
I had found a collection of coloured sticky ribbons recently in an art shop in town and used these to hold the parts of the wings together.

I must admit I did a lot of it and finished the structure, but that is not the point. He enjoyed doing his part in his favourite colour blue until he gave up. Later we simulated a flight. And on a visit from my grand daughters we made their bird in the same way and her mother hung both kites up in their living room Hurrah ! A flying success.

The Wasp Nest

I found this work in an exhibition about stitching as an inspiration for our kite making

Kite workshop with Ella and Freya

M E R M A I D S

My workshop with grandchildren Ella 5 and Freya 3 during the week Mo 29 Aug to Fri 2 Sep 2022

Really? Don’t overdo it! Don’t get angry!

It was not necessary for ME to get involved. ME, being defensive.

I negotiated 1 hour between 9 – 10 am on three mornings for a workshop: MY workshop.

Pony riding, lake visit, outside playground, car transports, eating and sleeping was well organised and thought about by others. The long envisaged week with the grandchildren was certainly well catered for. No need for my additional “arty” interests.
I suppressed this “need” in me for it really felt NO good for anybody or at least I felt I had no function.

On came the workshop day. I banged a wooden spoon on a pot and with a builder’s hat introduced myself as a storyteller. The audience of 2 knew already the story of the MERMAID as I then found out – but not the original one written by Christian Anderson. I made this notion very important and then spoke slowly with a lot of gaps:

The sea king had lost his wife, he was a widower. His mother stepped in but she was in the real world and didn’t rule the deep sea like her son at the bottom of the sea. He was the king of INNOCENCE in the fantasy world down there.

What do you think about the life down there ? Would you like to be part of it? The grandmother said to the girls if you don’t like it anymore and when you can wait until you are 15 I promise you a prince, for the best you!

Anyway, I quickly found out that what attracted my girls was the joy to perform and to dance. I was stunned by the intelligence of the younger one to instantly pick up on exactly the steps of her sister. I only discovered that after I looked at my photos on the iPhone. So it happened that I invited them to perform and to do that in front of their own stage set. And for that “art” I handed out two square meter sheets of paper from a newsprint roll given to me years ago for free by a printing place. I encouraged them to draw creatures, animals, people, plants and castles of the story I had told them suitable for both worlds, the real and the underworld. I suggested tearing out waves and clouds but to pay attention to the ways paper can be torn.

The different development of the girls became apparent. Ella created elaborate drawings whereas Freya loved to paint a huge blue sea and glue her torn waves with wallpaper paste on top of it.

To be like a child, what does that imply ?
Are we naive when wanting to be like a child ?

and and…he only wanted to make her feel small, the Squash-Device.

She took the biggest brush and I worried about a colour ordeal. I took her into a shed outside. But what about her clothes ? Was I not prepared enough ? That could only happen to me I heard an inner voice saying.
But lucky I was, I remembered a bag of T-shirts given to me too big for an event at that time. Here they reached right down to the feet of both children. I suggested to paint zig zag pattern onto the lower parts of these T-shirts to simulate scales of fishes. But really – being confronted with the REAL world myself – predictably … some colour came through to a pink T-shirt and I had to face repercussions from her mother. But lucky I was again. She forgave me.
For their dance performance I put ribbons around their legs. Here again I was in my own world and “over the top”. And then, there was not enough time for a rehearsal, the younger Freya could not imitate her older sister who enjoyed boasting her
own brilliance. The spontaneity in them I had enjoyed at first ended in a quarrel between them. And I was punished because typically for me I had to finish setting up the backdrops myself holding the two worlds together with black Gaffa tape.

So it comes that I reflect here with you, the reader, on the value of spontaneous creative interactions and if there is a meaning and a function for this in a wider educational and political context nowadays !
Please write or talk to me and tell your own stories when playing and working with children and grandchildren.
I am interested.

And as a stimulus I add a “word” from one of my favourite writer Jan Morris on INNOCENCE.

I found this work in an exhibition about stitching as an inspiration for our kite making