Comments on: Marla Olmstead Paintings: My Kid Could Paint That

By: Chr15to

Chr15to — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:30:11 +0000

In what way is leaving paints out for one’s child “forcing” them to paint?

By: HatePolluck

HatePolluck — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:52:52 +0000

Oh and one last thing. They forced her to paint. Do you want to paint?
I’ll lay out the things for you. You don’t have to but it will be there waiting ofr your.

By: HatePolluck

HatePolluck — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:48:58 +0000

Oh, and Marla does say in the movie, Zane paints, he painted the green one, I didn’t touch it. And her dad was ignoring her when she said it.

Still, I would never pay for abstract.

By: HatePolluck

HatePolluck — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:33:50 +0000

I don’t like abstract. But to say people were ripped off, the answer is no.
They like the ugly stuff and paid for it. That’s it.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:51:37 +0000

I can relate to this story from my own experience. I was a member/organizer of an artist group that hosted a juried art exhibit. The exhibit included 2 divisions – adults and students. With my encouragement, my daughter entered a piece she did on her own. She won first place of the student division. The hitch is that most of the students were high school/college level and she was in the 4th grade. The jury didn’t know ages when they judged.

Since I was an organizer and also an artist, skeptics jumped to the conclusion it was fixed that she would win. She had never entered anything like that before. I kept all the critical comments from her so that she would have positive memories of that experience.

The point is that a situation like this will be attacked by skeptics because a child is under a parent’s influence – not out on their own making their own decisions.

I saw the documentary. Only the Olmstead’s know the real story so who knows what to believe? I have empathy for Marla’s parents and for Marla having to deal with this history no matter what she decides to do.

By: gazoo

gazoo — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:00:47 +0000

From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t appear she did the paintings attributed to her. Do I care? Only is so far as how this debacle effects this child emotionally. If we assume the father is actually doing the paintings and encouraging the daughter to take credit for them, that sets the child up as a liar and a fraud, and unfortunately, there are emotional repercussions she will suffer as a result. Children,even when telling a fantasy story of their own device, want to be believed. They don’t want to be challenged. Many children may begin to believe their own tall tales, and frankly, that’s all right. They are children, and their brains will sort out the truth from the half-truths eventually. But in this case, this is a fallacy based on someone else’s motives. Now, Marla is likely reprimanded if she doesn’t stick to the real story, no matter how much she may protest to her parents that she didn’t do the paintings, she knows she’ll be disciplined in some matter if she goes public.
That kind of ‘secret’ goes against a child’s nature. On the one hand she wants to be truthful, on the other hand she doesn’t want to disappoint or upset her parents, and if we have another hand, she doesn’t want to disappoint all the people who shower her with positive attention.
The test to gauge her truthfulness at that young age (4 or 5) would have been to ask sternly, ‘did you paint this on MY canvas?”. I don’t know a 4 or 5 year old who would admit to something they didn’t do, if they believe they’re in trouble. As a matter of fact, you’re likely to get ‘daddy did that, really, he did’, and perhaps just as likely a little girl going into complete melt-down over the charade.
I do like some of the work, so whomever is responsible should continue, but it’s not Marla, and they shouldn’t continue to exploit her innocence.

By: MMorrissey

MMorrissey — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 02:10:12 +0000

There seems to be a lot of angry, arrogant people posting here. Elizabeth Cohen (the reporter) sums it up when she comments on how the documentary (and the buzz around little Marla) is really about adults.
So many people are stirred-up about the authenticity of her work and what price collectors are paying for her canvases. The value of art and what someone will pay for a piece are not always the same thing…
Just leave the little girl alone and let her paint, with or without a “coach”.
And let the art collectors with fat wallets pay what they want for a piece of Marla’s innocence. It won’t last forever…
Marla’s art will survive us all anyway!

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 05:15:21 +0000

Does anyone remember Balloon Boy ? Artists Girl ?

By: Bente Rasmussen

Bente Rasmussen — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 23:10:20 +0000

I just don’t like the feeling of being lied to. And my feeling is that Marla’s father isn’t telling the truth about how involved he’s been in the painting process. I do like several of the paintings very much, so in my opinion, someone in the household is talented. Why couldn’t the father just have tried showing them as his own, saying how he and his daughter likes painting together, and he was inspired by her… I would have believed that.

By: Susie

Susie — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:20:55 +0000

If something is judged to be art, it still must be that, nomatter who created it. And therefore still worth the same.