A form of decoration made by scratching through wet plaster on a wall or through slip on ceramic ware, showing a different-coloured under-surface.
I was at the center of a 5th grade arts and crafts scandal. At the core of the crisis: some of my model ships, paint-by-number portraits, string art, and other masterpieces.
The scandal began when the school’s Art teacher decided to have a School Art Contest. She was the sole judge who decided which works from the student body were the best, the bestest, the most beastliest. It ended up being the only contest of its kind from my years of grade school.
I entered several items into the contest, including a model ship of the H.M.S. Bounty, a string art piece depicting a sailboat, and a couple of plaster-casted football players. I entered numerous other items, making me the school’s most prolific contributor to the contest.
Alas, I won nothing. Not even an Honorable Mention, and for that matter not even an acknowledgement from the Art teacher as to why I was passed over. I never protested, but others seemed readily alarmed that my items, some of which were downright professional-looking, were all ignored.
I do not remember what type of items won the top awards, but even at the time I think I understood what the Art teacher was trying to say. I think she felt my stuff was not as genuinely creative as other people’s clay urns and snakes made of putty. My model ship was out-of-the-box, assembled according to detailed instructions. I submitted a paint-by-numbers illustration of a fall foliage scene. The likenesses of the football players were created with a set of prefabricated casts purchased at a toy store.
In other words: none of this stuff was unique or creative. It was assembly line arts and crafts. She never told me that — she never told me anything — but it’s a reasonable conclusion. I think she was also irked at the sheer quantity of items I entered into the contest.
She may have had a point, but scandal ensued anyway, and no one gave the recipients of her awards any credibility. I do not know if this situation contributed to her departure from the school (probably not) but with her exit at the end of the school year came the end of the School Art Contest.
I was not exactly popular in grade school, so the solidarity that I felt from my classmates was surprising. I remember it today as something of an aberration, though I can’t say if the solidarity’s uniqueness speaks for its credibility or for its childish self-righteousness.
