Work Text:
“What do I want to do with my art?”
All Claudia’s life, she view Janine as mean, the alien from outer space who never quite fit in and didn’t understand human emotions, yet as Janine sat down and talked to her about where Mimi currently was mentally, something clicked.
Janine wasn’t mean, at least not intentionally, but she honestly simply wanted to help.
Take, for example when Janine brought up her comments regarding what Claudia wanted to say with her candy art that Claudia morphed into a hurried attempt to come up with some kind of meaning to her work for the judge in hopes of getting into the school of her dreams.
“What are you trying to say?” was what Janine meant, something nobody ever talked to Claudia about before, but then Janine caught her on an art fact that she didn’t know, but then she couldn’t understand half the terms for. Janine said what she did with over-complicated words, almost as if that were her way of expressing herself, her art form just like Claudia’s art form was pictures, yet in both cases what the person was trying to say was ultra important.
“Don’t delude yourself,” wasn’t Janine trying to tell her she didn’t think Mimi wouldn’t get better, but that Claudia needed to be patient with the progress and not be disappointed when things didn’t seem to progress as fast as they did—as they did.
And for once, Janine spoke on a level Claudia could understand, telling her something about Mimi she never knew, something that was a part of both Janine and Claudia yet also sparked something wonderful in Claudia.
“What do I want to do with my art?”
Claudia finally understood that question and she’d found an answer, one many other artists never find.