Notes from an Exhibition

Rachel never said as much but it was obvious she thought Morwenna more talented than her brothers. When they brought paintings home from school, she’d dismiss them with a ‘very nice’ or an unconvincing burst of enthusiasm whereas whenever Morwenna did or whenever Morwenna picked up her crayons at home and drew things, Rachel took it as seriously as she might them forming letters correctly or doing maths. She would ask impossible questions like, ‘Why did you use that colour instead of this one?’ or ‘What makes you draw the tree from that angle?’ and if she came across Morwenna in the act of drawing or painting she could never refrain from correcting the way she was applying a colour or demonstrating an effect she could improve by holding her pencil at a different angle. The result was to make Morwenna self-conscious and nervous about art by introducing rights and wrongs into something that would otherwise have been a kind of play.