54/100 - Room to grow
There is a sense that this room is floating through space. So while the plant growing in the smiling pot is contained, she's also protected. Protected by the walls and the windows and the mean stare of the floor. I find the balance between protection and freedom very intriguing. I know nothing about parenthood but that's specifically the thing I observe constantly with my friends and their kids, the difficult balance between keeping them whole and letting them do things on their own, explore and fail.
The closest I've felt to experiencing those difficulties has been teaching middle school kids. I was initially terrified of letting them work with glue guns and cutters under my supervision but my boss, who is also a parent, gentle assured me it would be fine. And it has been fine, I have a pretty decent safety record after doing it for a few years but the occasional injury is almost unavoidable. Yet, the weird thing is that by now I'm a little bit proud of my ability to safely expose them to a little danger. By now I have even been that one adult in the room asuring other adults things are under control.
It seems I have grown too, in a room built by others, under the mean stare of many protective floors.
Room to grow is a little 2.5" by 4" celebration of controlled risk. Available here(sold).