Gauguin. Matisse. G Frenzy.

Messy, scattered, uneven, G Frenzy's art is his, it belongs to him, his mind, as little as it is; it is beautiful, sometimes tragic, sometimes sweet. Zombie killers one day. Doggies at the schoolyard the next.

My son draws pictures, scenes, even stories in the form of books bound by staples. He can't spell, so there are no captions or text.

Sometimes I am a little unclear as to why a cute puppy does math at home in one chapter and then a monster comes down from a spaceship and eats the head off his little brother in the next.

"Daddy! Mommy!" he proudly screams while running down the stairs in his art uniform -  often just his Buzz Lightyear underwear - waving a sheet of paper. He plops down the paper exhibiting his latest creation onto the dining room table that has scattered stains of dried baby food all over it. His art is sometimes vibrant with various colors, figures, sometimes just a few lines scribbled on it with black pen ink.

"Beautiful!" we say. And we mean it. We also do not get in the way of his style. If he draws Santa Claus as a messy, thin pink frog, we say "Great job!"

Why get in the way of an artist? "Excuse me, Ms. O'Keeffe, I don't quite see a lake here. Can you add a few fish?"

Art is interpretive so why does Santa have to be fat with an unshaven gray beard?

We love and embrace and encourage his love of art. All kids love art. I want my son to die for it.

Too much?

I once heard a story of how Salvador Dali, in the late stage of his life, was out in front of the Art Institute in Chicago peddling his paintings to pedestrians, to anyone who would stop. No one knew who he was. The pen thin, slick, long mustache was not a dead giveaway apparently.

"Art isn't always glamorous," I tell my son. "Sure, one day you might have a vast open spaced studio loft with wooden floors and wall-sized canvases in Chelsea with sultry french interns licking your fingers, getting them ready to paint your next masterpiece."

Or like Diego Rivera, be married and in the company of another brilliant artist who has a unibrow with a cool name and a bad back.

I encourage him to sell his art to understand how commerce works and to know that the ascension of celebrity is a valuable element of growth for any creator. "Art can gain you fame," I tell him. "And as an artist, you can dress really odd yet fun like Julian Schnabel." I persist. "It also often breeds a deep unshakable insecurity and a mean drug habit, but in the end, it will turn you into a man not willing to compromise his soul." At this G Frenzy brushes his head to the side, dismissing the weird paternal influence in his presence and asks for a cereal bar.

But he caught on.

He began coming down the stairs and telling Conquistadora and I that his art shop was open. Good boy.

"Come, come, um, up to my, and um, my room, Mama and Dada. Come! Hurry!" His passion was palpable.

We went up to his room and sure enough, inside his closet on a low shelf were several of his works neatly spread out on display and for sale.

"25 cents for each," said G. "Huh? Well, okay son, great," my wife said, a little perplexed. I just winked at him and grinned that this was the beginnings of a young prodigy someday bringing home balls of cash to Mama and Dad.

We handed over the silver coin. He slid it into his baby blue ceramic piggy bank. Transaction complete.

Now he wants 12 bucks a pop, sometimes more. Who made you Picasso overnight? Jeez. "Dada, this one," he says pointing to what looks like a love letter by a piss drunk man to his mistress scrawled in blood.

"Two dollars and 33 quarters," he says while waving his hand like a anxious vendor at a packed market in Jerusalem. I look at him and tell him that the math doesn't make sense. I pause.

This is another lessen in supply and demand. "Two nickles and five pennies," I counter-offer. I try to cheap him down. I stare in his eyes trying to sink his salesmanship. It works.

He doesn't know how to add yet and I was not about to waste an opportunity to get a deal.

He accepts the money thinking his Dad just made him wealthy enough to buy a pack of Pokémon cards. Its healthy for kids to learn on their own sometimes. My Mom didn't show me how to choke hold a fellow student at recess in kindergarten. I had to learn on my own.

My Mom always told me the Latin phrase by Hippocrates, "Ars longa, vita brevis." Art is long, life is short. And she was right.

I tell G Frenzy that one, as well as another code to live by: Greed is Good. Or Lavidité est bonne.

That sounds so much more, well, art-like.