instead of guns. Swords, knives and claws skewered strawberries and broccoli florets. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader posed, arms around each other, declaring galactic peace. Our younger son soon joined his older brother in campaigning for more complicated, full color napkins, as well as more action and weapons. I slowly acquired an impressive collection of Sharpies, and then bought more sophisticated art markers. I try my best to honor their requests, but as I do most of the drawings after the kids go to bed, it is often not possible to orchestrate a complicated scene involving multiple unfamiliar characters. There were a few school years and summer camp sessions when both boys were taking a packed lunch, and I had to make some timesaving rules like “no more than two characters per napkin.” When I don’t receive a request, I try to draw something that interests them, ideally something that they have been looking at, playing with, or reading about the day before. At bedtime, we often talk about what would make a good napkin image – some oddly appropriate or ironic combination of characters perhaps. The kids definitely see the napkins as a collaborative project. In recent years, thenapkins almost always comebackhome in reasonably good shape. Early on, they were actually used for their intended purpose, and returned spotted with berry yogurt andmustard, if at all. At this point, however, neither kid uses them for anything besides decoration and social lubricant. Several years ago my older son reassured me, ““Oh, I only use the napkin to get attention. I wipe my hands on my clothes.” We have boxes of hundreds and hundreds of returned napkins at home. The boys enjoyed looking through them, revisiting their previous obsessions day by day, and leaving piles of napkins spread all over the apartment. A few years in, I started the napkin blog mostly because I was tired of picking up the used napkins and putting them back in the boxes. The blog allows the kids to look back at the entire Batman, or the “Star Wars characters riding dinosaurs,” themed napkins at one time with much less clean up. Now that they are older, they also like to read my commentary on the images and argue with me about it. Making the drawings nightly encouraged me to stay in touch with whatever my sons were obsessing about on a given day. Knowing a little more about, for instance, the annoying phrase that they are shouting repeatedly all week long helps to make it a bit easier to tolerate. I may find a video game that they adore mostly irritating, but if I have to discover something inside it that would be interesting to draw, I learn to appreciate it a little more. Now that both boys eat in the cafeteria and I no longer pack lunches during the school year, the napkins are no longer daily year round. During school, I make a couple a week for the “bank” so that they can be used for summer camp lunches. The napkins appear to be a habit that I can’t entirely shake. And I just don’t seem to draw as well on other surfaces. While the napkin drawings are clearly an indulgence, I do see them as a bit more than just that. I get something out of drawing them beyond just the positive effect on my relationship with my sons. I view the napkins as a sort of compulsory nightly drawing practice, an enforced pop culture update, and (in my most pretentious moments) a particularly long running sort of performance art. None of the napkins are notable works of visual art by themselves. But, well, there certainly are a lot of them, and the group comprises both a narrative of a particular cultural time and a personal relationship. Over 1400 of the napkins can be seen at dailynapkins.com 194 WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM *
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