MAKING THE DARK LESS SCARY
Houston’s Wilde Collection is the most exquisitely creepy and oddly beautiful shop in Houston, and now it wants to put the nightmares and fantastical imaginations of the city’s children on display in a new art show.
The exhibit, “Nightmares & Invisible Friends,” which opens Sunday, will feature drawings from children detailing what has frightened them in the dark, or comforted them in the forms of imaginary friends. It’s a rare experience fitting for a place as unique as the Wilde Collection.
The genesis of the project came when co-owner Lawyer Douglas was Googling various things and ran across a picture a child had drawn, which had prompted very negative responses from commenters. Many declared the artist “creepy” and a probable serial killer. That struck a chord with Douglas, who draws on his own childhood nightmares for much of the art he creates and displays in his shop.
“I got the idea that there has to be a way to validate children through their artwork and through their fears, not just what is good and wholesome about them,” Douglas says.
So he put out some feelers. Those who responded were asked to come to the shop to pick up paper and a gilded frame. The children were encouraged to draw their nightmares and imaginary friends at home, before returning the finished product to Douglas to be displayed. Douglas hopes that within the safe space of the home parents and kids can enter a dialogue about these aspects of childhood, which often are waved away as unwholesome fantasy.
The show is intended to be a true showcase of the children’s talents. Rather than a temporary false wall or other display, the pieces are being hung as part of the shop’s regular collection throughout the store, alongside other macabre offerings from established adult creators. Each piece is priced at $10, well within the budget of most art collectors. The entire fee goes directly to the child who created it.
“They’re here, they’re showing off their work, it’s beautifully framed,” Douglas says. “Maybe they’ll see other kids and think, ‘Oh, I also dreamed something like that.’ There could be this discussion. Whenever a child talks about fears, it’s dismissive. ‘It’s all fake or a dream. Stop thinking about it. You’re freaking us out.’ Through art, I think this could be very validating for them.”
The responses to this call for childish phantasmagorias has been very satisfying to Douglas and the Wilde Collection, and the shop plans to make it an annual event and to expand their offerings for children. It’s part of a larger push the Wilde Collection has been a part of, bringing dark and strange things to Houston family audiences.
They recently contributed to the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” exhibit and were instrumental for some of the skeletal arrangements in the current “Death by Natural Causes” exhibit, including posing a 17-foot anaconda skeleton attacking a man. A collection of their taxidermy fairies is expected to become part of the Sugar Land HMNS “Cabinet of Curiosities” in the near future.
Wilde Collection is looking to create space for children to express their darker side positively, and it is a side that makes up a great deal of a child’s mental life. A 2004 study by University of Washington and University of Oregon psychologists showed that by age 7 65 percent of children have had an imaginary friend. And nightmares are often common in children from ages 5 to 8, and the National Sleep Foundation recommends tactics very similar to those Douglas suggested for this art call. Open dialogue in a safe place, not dismissing children’s fears and engaging with creative control mechanisms can make the dark less scary. And while an art show dedicated to nightmares might sound morbid, Douglas sees it as a net positive. “Kids can be very dismissive to each other when they describe their dreams, so kids just shut down,” says Douglas. “They no longer want to create, share or draw. Who doesn’t want a piece from a young artist like that? You can see value in their emotions, fears and dreams.”