Kathryn Blessington
Author’s Note:
Kathryn Blessington (unruly Cali kindergartener, 2003) painted a koala in art class that could barely be defined as a koala. While the other kindergarteners were beginning to scratch the surface of a koala, Kathryn’s– with its bobble-head skull and clown nose– was ashamed to even belong to the same species. So Kathryn, accurately captured here as sticky and slimy, drew bright teal eyeshadow and long eyelashes onto Australia’s national pet. And she was proud, because koala looked good. She was about to pull out some hot pink for a popping lipstick when her art teacher came over and told her she did the assignment wrong. He told her to erase the makeup and Kathryn– the stubborn and tantrum-prone toddler she was– said no. As a result, she was kicked to the curb outside the art building and her painting was thrown away.
To her, this is a funny story. If Kathryn chose to be deep and existential, maybe that was a Picasso-breakthrough moment: she did something different and was told that different was wrong. But Kathryn is not a deep person and has no patience for the existential. She only Sephora'd her canvas because she was more familiar with Barbie’s anatomy than a koala’s. So, out on the California curb, she picked her nose and carried on. But here’s to being different anyway.
Strut Your Stuff, Koala Diva Baby
Koalas don’t normally roam the sticky tables of kindergarten art classes; usually these furry creatures hang from eucalyptus branches with a sangfroid, sun-cuddled grace of a French Romantic Painting. And yet here lies one now– slouching in the canvas of an unwashed tiny painter, surrounded by other tiny painters with better-looking koalas. Grubby, foul, and stickier than the floor, the tiny painter’s tomato face looms over our grimacing koala. Furry hands will be thrown if anymore snot falls on koala’s immaculate fur (captured here unjustly with coarse crayon and booger finger smearing). Our koala’s fierce claws flinch as tiny painter rubs her slimy face “clean” and grabs more murderous crayons. Koala doesn’t care, koala will slice and dice. Koala almost strikes at this swamp beast junior when they are kissed hard by a bright teal crescent, arcing over their right eye like the moon shimmering over the Seine. Tiny painter paints the other eye and, with a black crayon pointed like a tall leather boot, draws eyelashes that stretch across the Australian outback and back.
The koala bats their newly gifted eyelashes, night-time neon eyeshadow invigorating like ecstasy, eyelashes heavy with drama like the train of a runaway bride after the mistress announces herself. Across the kindergarten floor, everyone could feel this koala’s colors shine as Top Model confidence surges through their veins. Our koala struts down the runway of their canvas, drawing the envy of the imposter koalas cramping her stage. The boring wannabes reeking of mundanity will never know this cocoon-burst, crystalline, beaming, diamonds for breakfast koala. The other sticky painters wish they could have had this glamor-incarnate, born to be wild, skin-clearing goddess koala. Bow down to the apple of Steve Irwin’s eye. Audrey Hepburn wished she could have been this Australian outback candy darling, but this koala don’t need to hear you say it– they know they are jaw-drop-dead-into-stone gorgeous.
Tiny painter smile could grow crops, koala inspires that much life through their beauty. But tiny painter’s teacher somehow finds it in him to scowl at beauteous change.
Bite. Me. Mr. Grim. Reaper. Koala claps. I cannot help that you were born naked and chose to stay that way. And even when the stage lights were cut, when tiny painter exiled into time-out, and when the teacher grabbed the white-out, koala and all those kids who later grew up always knew that koala was the cherry-on-top, the-world-is-your-oyster-and-I’m-Venus-retiring-with-her-pearls, champagne of animals koala.