Art School

Jake was not homeschooled.  Kind of the opposite, really.  He left home when he was fourteen to go to a special art school.

He loved art.  He needed more art.  He couldn’t get enough art, or the right kind of training, from his school.  So he found a school where he could, and he moved there.

Go, Jake!

Except that today, as Jake was taking us around the Museum of Fine Arts to explore colonial and Mayan embroidery, I heard a lot about Jake’s mom.  We have been with him on three other Artful Adventures, and I don’t remember hearing anything about his mom. But today, I learned that she could crochet a scarf in ten minutes.  And she designed a rug pattern and had the rug made.   When we asked if she was an artist, he said that she was a “failed architect.”  It wasn’t said with disrespect.  Instead, it sounded like Jake understood her unmet desires to create beautiful things.

Jake had not embroidered before today.  And the MFA didn’t offer embroidery as one of the Artful Adventures.  But I wanted to make a sampler, so the incredibly cool ed department there bought the supplies and Jake learned how to do it.  Just so he could teach us.  It’s hard not to love people who go out of their way to make something work for your kids.

You may have heard me extol the virtues of Jake in other posts.  He is a gifted teacher. He takes what the kids say and ask and create, and uses it all to move their thinking and imaginations forward.  He was right to leave his traditional school.

Today, though, I kinda wished that he had spent some more time with his mom before he ran off to art school.  Who knows what would have happened if they had spent a year making scarves and designing rugs together?  A year of home-art-school might have been great for both of them.

Maybe some day they’ll get the chance.  I just hope it’s not before we finish our Colonial America unit.