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| Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence |
The Arty Party I believe is Pinky's favorite.
It was several years before we tackled the renovation of Pinky's basement playroom. A huge stone lined space, it had a built out, cupboarded room made for the intricate fantasies of little girls. She had a very goofy one that I still don't understand. This requires some input from Pinky. Pinky and her best friend Nell would put their heads into large boxes and sing operatically. ? I think this was a twist on putting on a play.
The basement gave them a place to rehearse their beat boxing rap songs, further torture the Barbies and listen to Ace of Base. It was a touch dark and creepy outside of the finished room so it showed right away who was likely to be fun. No sob sisters allowed.
Wonderfully, we were able to send out hand written invitations with Pinkie*, the famous painting by Thomas Lawrence, as the front of the card.
I loved this party too. It was in my wheelhouse, as we say now. Maybe that's why there were no catastrophes, I actually knew what I was doing.
I met the guests at the door and handed them painter's hats (donated by the paint company) and gloves, a big brush, and pulled a black garbage bag poncho over their clothing. After I took their pictures for the thank you note, they headed downstairs - not creepy when there are a lot of you.
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| NELL PINKY ADDY |
They
were set free, commanded to paint the walls any way they wanted to,
no mistakes could be made. I set out big buckets of tempera paint in
primary colors and watched the exuberant graffiti unfold.
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| PAINTERS AT WORK |
All the colorful paper decorations came from Chinatown, big cloth ones were already there, from India.
After all the painting was finished we sat down to a long picnic table set up in the basement for the occasion. Pinky and I had made a great birthday cake in blocky abstract form decorated with striped gum, peppermints, pixie stix, candy confetti, and PINK icing of course. I can be pretty clever with baking aids, I bake in metal bowls for a dome shape, get the square with artful carving, etc. You don't have to buy a special tool, just be ready for a little lack of perfection which makes the cake way more charming, that's what I tell myself.
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| CAKE IS BLOB IN FRONT OF PINKY |
Finger sandwiches and cake gone, we played pin the ear on van Gogh (I used a poster of his selfie and handcrafted the ears) and charades, also a chalkboard version of pictionary.
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| EARS ARE NEXT TO MR. GOGH |
Because the party was based on destruction/deconstruction I couldn't go wrong. Amazingly, no one got too paint covered. The loud and happy voices told me everything. I had made a hit, I got to stand tall in front of my young and intimidating critics.
You could re-enact this artistic free-for-all by covering the walls of a room with heavy craft paper. My mother used to bring home the enormous end roll from a newspaper printing plant. They would switch it to a fresh one before it had entirely run out and these would be thrown away. From the time I was barely taller than the roll I would go into the closet and cut off big pieces of paper for projects, homework, etc.
When I finally renovated the space the walls were carefully covered in bead board so they could be discovered by an archaeologist some centuries down the line.
I bet you think I made it a pretty beige and white officey space for my ambitious teen. In fact, I had the walls painted smoky red, put in leopardskin carpeting, low sofas and ottomans, and Arab brass tray tables, all meant to look like a Moroccan souk ( I may have been remembering some very good times at Regine's). This may seem nutty, but while living in dimly lighted houses in London I learned that a jewel tone for the walls works better than white; white walls turn grey when in shadow. Ahead of my time as ever.
* Although Pinkie and Blue Boy are beloved by the world, and I de facto love the painting Pinkie, I can't look at it without being driven crazy by the incorrectly painted akimbo arm.
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