November 26,
2007
Link to
My favorite
family of God-loving artists who were on NPR radio this week. You can
hear the interview
here or read a transcript below:
Family of Artists
A Grand Rapids, Mich. family create art in an unconventional lifestyle.
by Kaomi
Goetz
Having one parent who works as an artist, or even both parents, may not
be all that unusual, but what about the whole family? That's the case with
the Beerhorst family of Grand Rapids,
where
the entire brood is encouraged to make art and sell it. They even call their
lives an experiment in living.
Rick and
Brenda Beerhorst and their children are at the office.
Well, not
the usual kind. They're working in clusters inside an old carriage garage
behind their house.
And
they're definitely not faxing or computing anything.
"Is this
ready to go?" Rick Beerhorst peers at his daughter and a painting she's just
finished.
The
Beerhorsts are in one of their regular art-making sessions.
The kids
grab whatever paintbrush or paint marker is available, a wooden board or
paper scrap, and dip into whatever colors are on the table.
The end
result seems less important than the actual making of the art.
Eight
year-old Dove Beerhorst stands up for a minute to explain her piece.
"I'm
using reds and blues," she trails off.
This
family makes their living almost entirely on their collective art which they
sell off the walls of their home.
Patriarch
Rick Beerhorst is a well-respected painter whose work is influenced by
American folk art.
His wife
Brenda is also an experienced painter and collage artist.
Beerhorst
says having the family make art together is a way to stay connected to their
children.
"The way
we grew up there was a disconnect, between the parents go here, the kids go
there, the parents work really hard to get them into a real good school, and
they go off to the good school and you see each other on Thanksgiving and
Christmas, you know? And we thought could there be something that's more
knit together than that?"
"My name
is Brenda, I'm the mother and wife. I have six kids. We sort of all hang out
together in the house, and the kids don't go to school, we encourage
creativity."
The
Beerhorst children, ages three to 15 years, are home-schooled, or as the
Beerhorsts like to say "unschooled."
The
children are taught to read by age eight, but aside from that, there isn't a
set structure.
Rick says
their curriculum is more about learning from life experiences.
"We don't
use textbooks, we don't use any curriculum We think of learning as a
continuum, the thought that you're going to school, doesn't even work for us
because where does that stop and begin?"
The
family uprooted several years ago to New York City for one of those life
experiences.
The idea
to was make art, take in a new culture, and learn from that for as long as
they could afford.
Rick
played music on the local coffeehouse circuit.
Their
eldest daughter Rose started making soft toys out of old socks that were
sold by several stores.
Brenda
Beerhorst says their New York experiment lasted about a year.
"It was
really harder than I thought to be away from everyone I knew. Another aspect
we hadn't thought about, we had six kids, living in a two-bedroom apartment.
And there was no yard for them to play in, and so we had to hike daily to
the nearest playground with them."
Last
year, the family returned to Grand Rapids and bought a house with a modest
back yard on a busy street.
They
liked its proximity to stores and a local farmer's market.
That was
important, because the family doesn't own a car.
They also
make do without health insurance. The Beerhorsts survive on what they make
from their art shows and from the occasional gallery sale of one of Rick
Beerhorst's paintings.
Sometimes
anonymous envelopes of money show up on their doorstep from sympathetic
friends.
They
regularly dumpster dive for furniture, art materials, clothes and whatever
else they can find.
It's a
meager living and Brenda Beerhorst doesn't pretend that it's easy.
"People
who don't know us, think wow, but they don't know the 3 am wonderings how
we'll pay the mortgage in a week, or being invited to go out for lunch and
knowing you had to scrape the change from your old winter coats to try and
add to five bucks and buy something and not appear to be weird."
For
15-year old Rose Beerhorst, growing up like this was not always easy.
She
remembers a time where she wished her family wasn't so different.
"All the
guys in our church did golf, so I thought that was normal, an office job was
normal, a buzz cut was normal, ladies who got manicures was normal, and our
food was not normal. We didn't eat tuna soup casserole. Now that I look back
on it, tuna soup casserole sounds pretty gross and so does golf. I think I'm
pretty happy where I'm at right now."
Today,
she says being different is actually a plus.
It gives
her more confidence and she calls conventional teen-age milestones like Prom
overrated.'
She says
staying at home allows her to concentrate on her creative interests, like
her sock monsters.
And she's
learned valuable skills on how to sell merchandise to the public, something
she might turn into a career.
Rick
Beerhorst says it'll be OK if his kids decide to shun this lifestyle when
they're adults.
But for
now, they all seem content to make art, sell it to strangers, and enjoy each
other's company.
The
Beerhorsts' next family show will be December 7-9 in the evening at their
home in Grand Rapids.