Clementius Stupnagel di Montefalcone: the saga of a smart artist (smartast)

Chapter 4
Inspite of the frequent change of domicile, CSM’s first few years of life were quite pleasant, being that he was in a cocoon. But as CSM’s mother had to work, and having no family to help her, she first put CSM in a municipal day camp on Coney Island and then in a kindergarten (the Grosshandel Kindergarten) in Queens. At the day camp, CSM made his first drawing that unsurprisingly ressembled a swan.

It was at the kindergarten that he made his second drawing, which was by no means remarkable, but that his mother took for a portrayal of his absent father. The Grosshandel’s, who had training in Gestalttheorie, saw more in this drawing than a vulgar portrait, be it that of CSM’s (absent) father or of someone else. In fact, their idea was that it was an expressionist representation of Kierkegaard’s hamster, you know, the animal that Kierkegaard’s writes about on and on for hundreds of pages.

The Grosshandel’s would have liked to keep CSM in their kindergarten until High school, but CSM’s mother had other plans, namely after the return of the father of her son.