Thoughts on Art: Alexandra's Santa and Erika's Horse

I feel like I cheated somehow. I used this new program my husband gave me on my birthday, which I finally installed on Christmas, three months after receiving the software.

The lovely edges and frame were not part of the original work. Of course, the girls could have mounted their coloring on black paper and just ripped the edges or used a gold frame. So maybe I'm over-reacting here in wanting to get this biographically correct, a raw representation of their product right now at age nine and ten.

That's a kind of obsession of mine...wanting to be biographically accurate. The obsession doesn't apply to my own art, poetry or fiction because those genres are not really "all me" or my life. I edit and edit and edit. Sure, there are auto-biographical parts, and you can deconstruct in whatever way you wish. But as we know from studying authors' lives, that's usually a waste of time. Poetry and fiction take on lives of their own.

Art does, too, but I want my children's art to be unedited. They work in first drafts. I want to remember that free-flow of ideas, the way they throw things down and are not afraid to call it art just because the details are missing. Sometimes, it's not their best work because they are tired or are under time constraints. I save only a few of those. But when they really try and have the right energy, that's when we get the best of their youthful minds.

The most interesting children's art says something about their thought process, and even in their first writing, I see extended metaphors and pertinent emotion. The characters in their stories mimic what is in their minds, as do the pictures they draw, paint and color. Not all the pictures they have drawn have been so pleasantly filled with kind men bearing gifts or horses running free in the wind. We learn a lot about children through their art, and it's not always what we want to learn.

I've always believed that expression is the best way to make sure children (and adults, for that matter) rid themselves of demons, celebrate the joy in their souls, explore imaginations, and share themselves with the world. I'm glad they have art and music programs and would like them to have even more. I give them art whenever I can....through projects and visits to museums as time allows. I am hoping time will allow this week, during the break. Maybe tomorrow will be a good day. Today, they want to spend time with their Christmas gifts. I can't blame them.

Art, creative writing and music provide so many skills that ordinary academic classes cannot: they develop coordination, senses of color and sound, vocabulary, math and spacial skills; understanding of both smaller parts and wholeness and how these all fit together. Dedicated art and music teachers are extraordinary people. The girls have had some excellent ones. Too bad these speciality teachers don't get paid enough. And it's even worse how often they are undermined, somehow deemed less equal partners in children's education. This is the plague of "specialty" teachers (and most educators) in general. 'It takes a CREATIVE village.'

I really didn't mean to get so philosophical here. Doing so is the antithesis of the child's mind which is a more concrete reflection of ideas and understanding. So I will shut up now and let their art speak for itself.

Here's me....."shutting up." LOL.