Recently saw the documentary film, My Kid Could Paint That, about Marla Olmstead, who in 2004 was 4 years old and commanding thousands of dollars for her abstract paintings.
The Binghamton, NY, reporter, Elizabeth Cohen, who initially broke the Marla story in the Binghamton Sun and Press Bulletin, noted in the film, however, that Marla’s tale is not about a little girl who appears to be an art prodigy. I’m not quoting her exactly, but Cohen said Marla’s story is really the story of a story and what the media does to such a story. Cohen notes that when the media is in a frenzy with a story at the forefront, inevitably the story has to change to feed the “monster” that is the media.
“It’s like a hungry monster,” says Cohen in the film. “It can’t get enough. This is lunch. This is what they wait for.”
In the case of young Marla, 60 Minutes changed the story by bringing in a child psychologist to question whether Marla really created all the paintings totally on her own — or whether she had help from, say, her dad.
The tantalizing missing piece to the story, both in the film and on Marla’s Web site (a really well done site, by the way), is what is Marla up to now. The film leaves Marla at age 6, stilling painting and selling her paintings, but not with quite the fanfare as before. Marla must be about 8 by now, and the viewer has to wonder if she’s still painting and selling and how the media spotlight affected her.
It’s an unfinished story to be sure.