My watercolors have bored through the heavy duty paper specifically designed for them. The overworked fuschia-saturated fibers disintegrate under my paintbrush and streak my paper. I attempt to swipe the piling aside with one clumsy ten-year-old hand; my global warming art contest entry will not draw itself.
I glance at the photo that I am referencing, still warm from the printer: a whale shark, rendered in blues and purples and mottled starry whites. My mother, seated on the opposite side of the room and seething under her breath at my ineptitude, is combing through Pinterest, sourcing and printing off drawings for me to copy. She views it as simple inspiration, only necessary due to my inability to come up with compositions that she likes. I don't like putting other peoples' work in my own pieces. The process of replicating each printout is engaging at best and disheartening at worst. I have never been fond of collages.
I dip my brush into my water cup for the umpteenth time, watch the wine-dark contents stain pinker, and fastidiously dry the tuft and ferrule before reloading the tip with the same vibrant fuschia. As soon as I touch the bristles to the paper, they flood the area with pigment and water like a blight.
I recoil in dismay. My stomach attempts to slink under the table and hide; I take a brief second to curse it for leaving me behind before attempting childish triage. Pressing towels to the damage proves unhelpful: the precariously fragile paper clings to the plastic cutting board it lays on.
It will break if I move it like this. I turn and inform my mother of the newfound issue.
"Unbelievable," my mother responds. "Just fix it."
I produce an embarrassingly infantile sob.
The injustice burns in my throat and pricks at my eyes. There is nothing in the world that will let me fix it. I have been producing art for two years but have never been taught its fundamentals, art lessons shunted aside in favor of the sentimental bias that my endearingly amateurish, sloppy, childish work garners me.
Quantity over quality was one of my mother's core tenets from first grade to the end of my elementary school career. My mother's academic excellence loomed large over our family's collective shoulders. I knew well that she put obscene effort into ensuring that my twin and I would go to a prestigious middle school: the eight-hour art contest weekends were a necessary sacrifice because our art wouldn't improve fast enough to get me into Nueva or Harker or Crystal Springs.
I didn't need to be a good artist as long as I looked like one on paper. I entered dozens of contests under her watchful eye and placed in a middlingly low percentage of them. The two of us hoped that the admissions officers would take my pseudo-professional front at face value.
It stunted me. It stunted my art. I will learn in three years that pilling, a common phenomenon among most low-end watercolor papers and those with poor technique, can be remedied with careful attention and the back of any metal spoon; for now, though, I am struck by the irrevocable notion that the world is going to end and it will be my fault.
My mother huffs and marches over to the table. I skitter out of my chair when she motions for me to move and watch her sit down in my place. She tugs my sketchbook, pencils, and scissors closer to her; I watch, teary and humiliated, as she constructs a whale shark in harsh strokes of graphite, cuts roughly around its perimeter, and slams the paper onto the piece's weak spot. Its edges, white, sharp, and sterile, glare at me accusingly. She looks up and does the same. We're both aware that I have failed, though our definitions of the concept seem different. I have disappointed my mother, even though I tried my best, and the shame of it roils behind my eyes. My work isn't good enough to place at this competition, my innate talent sabotaged by asinine, willful underperformance, and my obstinacy tears at her throat until she bleeds neurotic perturbation.
"I have to do everything for you. It's like you're not even trying." She stands up and pushes away from the table in one decisive motion.
I sit back down, meek, and hook my feet through my chair's spindles to lock myself in place.