DON’T SCROLL DOWN! Read this first:

At the end of this year, I will have two children with art degrees. My son graduated in December of 2008, with a degree in Studio Art. He is working as a cook in a top-rated restaurant, and starting a screenprinting business in the barn behind his house. My daughter will graduate in 2010 with a bachelor’s in Fine Art. This drives my husband – an engineer – crazy. They are smart kids. They both received scholarships, though I never saw the son crack a book or found any homework litter. The daughter graduated from high school with two years of college credits, and was able to enter college as a junior. They could have majored in anything. But despite my husband’s pleading, raving, and crying – sometimes all at once, such was his agony – they chose art. He remains wild with worry for their future.

These days, people will inquire about my daughter, her schooling, and they will get to the question, "What is she going to do with that?" Then, fearing that sounds disapproving, they begin to list all the amazing opportunities for art students. Disney! Movies! Advertising! Marketing! Nevermind that my daughter is a painter and an illustrator, not a graphic artist. They are trying to be helpful and kind. I always answer, with a crooked smile, "She’s hoping to sell appliances."

I am at peace with their academic choices. I have had more education than any person needs, and I’ve done everything from speechwriting to soapmaking to house painting. They’ll find their way, like their father, or search forever, like their mother, and either way will be their own.

So, that is not my problem. My problem is far more practical. Art students make art, some of which is not art. They are learning, after all. Our gallery includes a selection of garishly colored Picasso-esque black men from my son’s jazz-plus-pot phase; a series of albino animals inspired by my daughter’s love of Mark Ryden and white rats; a collection of pottery vessels that cannot hold water or sit level. Last semester I asked my daughter how she was enjoying her figure drawing class, a class with live, nude models. "It’s been great. I’m learning a lot," she said. "Except there’s this one guy who does all these ugly squatting poses." Now I have a book of sketches featuring this guy’s gaping ass crack and muscled thighs.

To be fair, we have some impressive pieces as well. From my son, two large wood panels, painted with thinned oils in a fashion that pulls a landscape from the woodgrain. From my daughter, several high quality portraits of people and animals, and a pottery salt pig shaped like a beehive, made just for me because I have a thing for salt pigs.

Until now, I have known what to do with all of these pieces. My children are reasonable and remarkably thick skinned, for artists. They don’t take offense when their less-desirable creations are stored, lovingly, in a closet. And they generally approve of our choices of what we consider to be their best work for display. Then there is this. Which is magnificent. And terrible. SCROLL DOWN NOW.