In my guild, fall is Person I Admire season. This year I had an anniversary—five students including my eldest son, who had participated in Person I Admire once a year for ten years in a row. I gave them each a few minutes before the presentations began to reminisce and to tell the group what they found personally significant. Listening, I realized that this activity had evolved into much more than a clever way to get kids to read. What began as a culminating activity, an opportunity to present a biographical report in costume from the point of view of a famous person, became an ongoing academic thread that has built into my children and my students the value of imagination.
I will never forget the year that my oldest son, now a ten year Person I Admire veteran, declared that he wanted to research Frank Gehry. There was no doubt in my mind what had inspired him. His weekly music lessons are situated in the conservatory across the street from what was, back then, the construction site of Frank Gehry's LA masterpiece, Walt Disney Concert Hall. So Taylor read books about Gehry (over and over and over again), visited a local museum exhibiting Gehry’s work (numerous times) and spent hours in the hands-on architectural activity room inspired by Gehry’s work. We even went on a driving tour to see other buildings designed by Frank Gehry in Los Angeles. Eventually architectural sculptures began cropping up all over the house—a veritable metropolis in my living room. The application of learning was alive and well. The ultimate fruit of my son's research, research that went on for three years, was to culminate in October of 2003 with the public unveiling of the concert hall.
Climbing the stairs a few paces ahead of me donning his idea of the perfect costume, Gehry’s concert hall in the form of an enormous hat, my son was deaf to the buzz of astonished whispers swirling. Surveying the lay of the land, connecting one by one with the massive shapes, he was unaware that his presence detracted attention from the inauguration of the icon itself.
While gazing at the shimmering mosaic rose pool, a couple shaking their heads in amusement walked right up to my little boy and invited him to be part of their photo, a photo I was asked to snap. As quick as the fascinated strangers wrapped their arms around my son’s small shoulders the shutter clicked. Handing the camera back to a man I’ll never see again, he flashed me a grin and thanked me for the experience. I followed silently two steps behind my son chasing sunlight on stainless steel.
Another man approached the hat only to discover, eyes dropping, that it rested on the head of a small boy. Introducing himself to my son as an award-winning architect he listened intently to the tale of the hat. Head shaking, eyes twinkling, he patted my son’s back, and looked to the sky in wonderment. In the end he asked for my son’s name and promised to commit it to memory, “I’ll be watching for you Taylor.”
Then came a barrage of curious strangers—a tour bus of people snapping pictures like paparazzi of the boy and his hat, fascinated parents demanding the name of my son’s teacher, students, security guards, and weary teachers wanting this formula for success. Each managed a moment with my boy and his great silver-winged hat. Taylor gladly shared the story of watching the icon slowly come to life, of the man named Frank O. Gehry who made buildings inspired by fish, and of his own research project that sparked the idea for the hat that triggered all the storytelling in the first place.
Swarms of people came to experience an architectural inauguration and were captivated by something they had not anticipated— a boy wearing a monumental hat. Toward the end of our visit, as I stood beside Gehry’s swooping silver sculpture pondering my son’s interactions with perfect strangers a man touched my shoulder and looked intently into my eyes, “You must be doing something right if your kid is into Gehry.”
I realized in that moment that these strangers were reaching out to touch imagination in a bland world. Crossing paths with this child, who connected with creativity and engaged in the work necessary to bring an imagination into reality, forced these strangers to step outside of what they believed a child is capable of and jolted their stereotype. I was in the midst of a slice of humanity that had journeyed afar to identify with a stainless steel exclamation point. It struck me that creativity is indeed a great magnet.
Art, whatever the form, begs its audience to attend to our longing to eradicate a haunting sense of disconnection. People had come in droves to celebrate face-to-face with Frank Gehry's imagination, had come to prove that outrageous dreams are possible. Gehry’s architectural masterpiece begs the question, “Why do we hide in dimly lit boxes behind blinds that keep us safely isolated from the risk of imagination?” His soaring structure presents a challenge to chase away the complacency that isolates humanity. My son, wearing a hat inspired by an architect he has never met, opened the door of imagination for people he will likely never meet again. His hat drew connections like a magnet, broke down walls, and briefly caused lives to intersect in a way that is noteworthy. My son audaciously locking arms with Gehry implored, “Look, me too!” Like Gehry before him, Taylor responded to the creative impulse, opened the blinds, and let the real thing in.
