Lyle Kissack

Picasso once claimed he’d give everything to again draw like a child.  He was right.  I am watching my 4-yr. old draw, uncapping a sequence of felt-tip pens according to his directions and watching him create a sinewy, spectral dynamo of a drawing on heavy paper. His joyous abandon and complete absence of calculus calls into question the term ‘artwork.’  It’s absurd to look for historical reference.  It is a mystery, pure and simple, that such inspired and intuitive solutions to the vaunted challenges of composition, space, color, rhythm, and inventive form should tumble from his cream o’wheaty fingers.  This drawing is a miracle, only less hoary: the beauty of lichen on icy stone, the grace in a gymnast’s arching bend, the tenor holding a note against a torrent of sound.  Or early humans cradling mineral powder in their palms as animal fat candles light the walls of a cavern, pouring their hearts out to capture the tension of the fray and to beckon a witness to the wonder and the fear—perhaps this is the closest thing to my son’s art.  Except he doesn’t really care about all that….to him it’s just a fireman.