What Does That Outsider Art Picture Mean?

Very often my pictures have no meaning to me until years later and of course they may mean something completely different for you. “You deliver unmarried children. You can’t be buried here,” is a phrase I heard on TV as I was painting one day. I immediately got caught in a thought wondering at the strangeness of it and didn’t catch the context in which it was said. When I woke up, as it were, the TV program was gone. Now I’ll never know. But the strangeness seemed to fit the picture I’d recently finished.

As for the picture of houses going down not up then I added trees growing down under a two sided sky. Soon after finishing the picture I discovered a book at the library showing a similar idea in an arid part of China and another in Paris. I worried about the French business building. I suppose they thought ahead but I can’t help but wonder what happens after a third week of heavy rain!

Another new thought to me is driverless cars. Everyone is so excited because WE CAN PUT OUR KIDS IN THEM AND NOT HAVE TO BE BOTHERED WITH OUR CHILDREN ANY MORE! We won’t have to discuss ethics on the way to school. We won’t have to comfort, discuss, and explain hurt feelings and mean kids after school. We won’t have to encourage, congratulate or commiserate after ball games.

My friends are amazed to see their grandchildren who are still too young to walk crawl to a handheld device on the floor. They often don’t like what they see on the screen, remember something better, and know what buttons to punch to get what they want. A two year old visited my quilting group. He should have snuggled on his grandmother’s lap to get secure then venture to close ladies, run back for grounding and to be cherished then venture further. He never looked up for two hours let alone got off his chair as he stared at a screen.

We hold and cherish our babies. As kids get older they explore more and more of their world but in these years they need to be cherished more not less. Its rough out there. Here’s thinking ahead. By the time we say to our kids, “I don’t want to be bothered by you. I’m important you’re not,” our children will feel so comfortable REprograming the nanny devices that we’ll put them in driverless cars to take them to school and they’ll go to a gang meeting instead. Someplace where they will have a valued place and be of value. Now the picture below looks different to me.  nancymauerman.com

 

 

You Deliver Unmarried Children You Can't Be Buried Here - Framed

You Deliver Unmarried Children You Can’t Be Buried Here – Framed

 

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