I’m a big fan of David Sedaris. In his 2008 collection of stories, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Sedaris wrote about when he was a kid and started to appreciate art.
Near where he grew up in North Carolina he found some local art gallery owner, who helped cultivate his interest. His description perfectly illustrates the way children like to be treated by adults as they start to discover adult things:
I was looking for framing ideas one afternoon when I wandered into a little art gallery called the Little Art Gallery. It was a relatively new place, located in the North Hills Mall and owned by a woman named Ruth, who was about my mom’s age, and introduced me to the word “fabulous,” as in: “If you’re interested, I’ve got a fabulous new Matisse that just came in yesterday.”
This was a poster rather than a painting, but I still regarded it the way I thought a connoisseur might, removing my glasses and sucking on the stem as I tilted my head. “I’m just not sure how it will fit in with the rest of my collection,” I said, meaning my Gustav Klimt calendar and the cover of the King Crimson LP tacked above my dresser.
Ruth treated me as an adult, which must have been a task, given the way I carried on. “I don’t know if you realize it,” I once told her, “but it seems that Picasso is actually Spanish.”
“Is he?” she said.
“I had a few of his postcards on my French wall, the one where my desk is, but now I’ve moved them next to my bed, beside the Miró.”
She closed her eyes, pretending to imagine this new configuration. “Good move,” she said.
The Little Art Gallery was not far from my junior high, and I used to stop by after class and hang out. Hours later I’d return home, and when my mother asked where I had been, I’d say, “Oh, at my dealer’s.”
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I love this. A psychotherapy client and I were just talking about how he would’ve liked to have been treated by his therapist as a child. He couldn’t say how, but I think this answers the question. I’m printing this and giving it to him.