Through the Birches

Where is my Tiger Mother?  Amy Chua has stirred up a delicious controversy with her new book about tough-love child-raising, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."  In one scene, she's insisting her 7-year old daughter master a piano piece.  She won't let her leave the piano until she gets it right.  Mom sits at the piano next to child, and they work through dinner, late into the night, no breaks for water or bathroom.  Chua says the house became a war zone.  The child was hysterical, and she herself got hoarse from yelling.  But, she says, she believed in her daughter, and they weren't getting up until that piece was perfect.   Deep in the night, her daughter finally mastered it.  Delighted and triumphant, tears barely dry, the little child played the song over and over, not wanting to leave the piano!  Tiger Mom's faith was vindicated.

Now, okay.  I've never done that with my children.  But part of me looks wistfully at Chua's daughter and thinks: "Where is my Tiger Mother?"  Don't you sometimes wish someone believed in you, so much, that they weren't letting you out of the studio until you had a beautiful painting?  You can't go get the tires rotated.  You can't start making dinner.  You have to stay here until you've got it.  But maybe we just got lucky.  Maybe Daily Painters Project (and the Believing Spirit who started it - you know who you are!) is like our own Tiger Mother now.  And doesn't she exhaust us!  She relentlessly pushes us beyond what we would have stuck out alone.  What would we do without her?

Through the Birches just did not come together easily.  I struggled, re-layered, tried another thing. How could something so small take so long?   I imagined Tiger Mom looking over my shoulder.  She had to be tough here.

Through the Birches is 6x6", acrylic media and collage on panel.