Updates and Musings

My husband has a toolbox.  In fact, he has several, with jumbles of clanking objects, most of which are too exotic for me to name.  Yes, I understand hammers and pliers, but some of that stuff is a mystery to me.  However, it is useful to him.  See, we’re not rich folk.  Most of the time, if something breaks around here, we (read “he”) at least try to repair it first ourselves, and most of the time, it works.  And although I don’t understand why he needs all these tools, they really work for him, save us time and energy, and even a little cash.  They make our lives easier. 

Now, I’m gonna switch gears here for a moment.  We have 4 kids, my hubby and I.  They are all different critters, different as giraffes and rhinos—and no, kids, I’m not gonna say which child is what animal.  All of them are clever little beasts, though.  I’m going to address one of them specifically here today—my oldest son.  He is 11, and we are going to refer to him as TWO because he is the second child, although the eldest boy.  TWO is a challenge.  TWO is a handful at times.  TWO is so smart it makes my head hurt, and he is currently reading Biology for Dummies, which was advertised in Barnes and Noble as helpful prep for the MCAT.  Now, don’t get me wrong—-TWO is NOT the next Doogie Howser.  TWO is not together enough for that.  He is wildly imaginative, and sometimes just plain wild.  He still can’t tie his shoes really tight, but throw him some questions about electricity or the biology of cells and he’s off and running.  His room is a mess constantly, no matter how I threaten and cajole.  He forgets things that he doesn’t deem important, which is most everyday stuff, and, before we got on top of the situation, he often forgot to do homework in the classes he found less than interesting. He spaces off in class during lectures that he isn’t necessarily interested in.  He adores learning visually–lessons that are a feast for the eyes are perfect for his educational menu.  Listening is NOT his strong suit.   TWO is other-motivated—grades don’t impress him much.  Oh, now, he’s motivated in that he doesn’t want to lose any weekend wii time (which is the only time our kids are allowed to play) but an A in and of itself isn’t the motivator.  TWO is motivated by learning what happens next!  Or, what is the BIG CONCEPT!  That’s TWO.  A big idea man.   Which is a wonderful, precious quality that I want him to keep his whole life.  However, it sometimes isn’t applicable in traditional school settings.

Now, in an ideal world—oh, why couldn’t I have been born on THAT planet??!!—schools would be able to recognize TWO’s learning style.  They would be able to strategize ways for him to be more engaged in lessons.  And frankly, TWO found himself in just such a school for his elementary years.  He found himself with teachers who were responsive, who listened to his dad and to me about his strengths and weaknesses.  Classroom lessons used lots of visuals for teaching and as components of assignments.  Oh, the school couldn’t do it all—organization of any type will be his Waterloo forever, I’m afraid.  But, all in all, from preschool to 6th grade, TWO had it going on. 

Then Middle School happened.  And in Middle School, well, there’s much more  focus on test taking, lectures, organization, and much less  focus on visual learning.  In other words, TWO was out of his environment completely. Teachers aren’t as engaged personally with each student, and frankly, the entire institution is about cranking out graduates on the assembly line of public education rather than individualizing learning for various students.  And for TWO, well, this really showed.   As a mother, I was quite taken aback with the changes I saw in TWO–much less interest in school, more withdrawn, quieter.  Using my keen sense of mom-intuition and thanks to a call from a teacher at his Middle School, the school administration and my husband and I have begun strategizing how to set TWO up for success.   

Now, this is when we apply the Toolbox.  (I know, it took a while to get here.)

If TWO had been evaluated as a child as to learning style when he entered school, and then again maybe once or twice more as he advanced in grades, well, a lot of time and energy could have been saved.  Because we would have had the right toolbox with the right tools in it to help him do what he needs to do in school.  It turns out that kids who are like TWO (and 30% of all kids are estimated to be visual-spatial learners as opposed to auditory-sequential learners) really benefit from specific techniques in the classroom.  He needs to take notes on paper, using colorful markers, and possibly drawing pictures of the things he needs to remember.  Because his brain is so visual, pictures are a much more native language to his brain than written English.  So, there’s one tool it would have been nice to teach him to use as a small child.  Alternative projects that involve the visual arts are another great learning tool for kids like TWO.  We have to think outside the box when it comes to organizing as well.  For TWO, and people like him (you know who you are, and yes, I’m one of you) if something is out of sight, it is out of mind.  So, although our school has provided laptops for each child in the Middle School, a computer calendar/assignment planner is just not a good tool for him, because once the laptop is shut, that information is literally gone for him.  Paper planners and calendars that can be filled with writing or pictures are much more effective and  another tool we could have used.   All in all, there are ways for dealing with kids like TWO, and ways to encourage them to excel at subjects they maybe don’t care so much for.   And I did find all these tools online, for free.  Here is the link for an excellent site.  Nose around.  http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/articles.htm

So, I guess the gist of all of this is that not only does TWO have a unique learning style, but every child in every school has a unique learning style as well.  Why can’t we evaluate our children as to this style at a young age and come up with a “Toolbox of Learning Strategies” for each child and child’s family to have at their fingertips, to help develop good study habits that make sense for the way that child’s brain actually learns?  I am convinced there are a good many children out there who aren’t achieving what they can because the way their brains work isn’t the way the teachers are teaching.  It’s not necessarily the teacher’s fault—most teachers are auditory-sequential learners, and that is why they became teachers themselves.  It is a circle that has no end.  But, if somewhere in that folder that follows our child from his first day of preschool to the day he walks out of the high school building with a diploma in his hand we had a bright red sheet of paper that says what type of learning style works best for him, and here is a list of strategies we can use to ensure classroom success, well, think of how empowering that would be for families AND schools as well. 

Do some research on your child and different learning styles.  There are online inventories that can help you figure out why your child responds the way he or she does in different learning situations.  Figure out what kind of tools to put in your child’s Learning Toolbox.  Approach the school with this information.  As often as necessary.  Stress that education is NOT a one-size-fits-all proposal.  Present the idea of learning style inventories to your school.  This is a cheap idea—no textbooks to buy, no travel expenses, no playground equipment to erect.  All it takes is a little creativity, a little motivation.  You have once chance at your child’s education.  Become involved, and insist that the school do the same.  Fill your toolbox.

My brain’s on simmer right now.  You know, like when you have your favorite marinara sauce bubbling away on the stovetop, wafting around the kitchen, making you want to eat right NOW!  But honestly, I can’t take time for a meal.  See, this is my busy season.  I write, illustrate AND PHOTOGRAPH for a living.  In fact, photography is, at least for now, where most of the money comes from.  And just because I want to sit contemplative outdoors in slanting autumn sunshine, smelling the leaves, drawing portraits of technicolor trees and golden moons silhouetted with midnight shaded bats, well, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.  Instead, I run yon and hither, taking family portraits, senior portraits, baby portraits, scooping up great gulps of autumn air, but not really having the chance to savor it right now. 

I’m writing—yes, more than this blog.  I have a great story going on right now, Buck’s Rodeo, and I’m thinking this one will be for upper elementary and middle school specifically, but my readers, 2 out of 3 of them at least, are adults, and they appear to be enjoying it thoroughly as well.  I do a 1000 words a night, give or take.  I tell myself, by Christmas it will be finished.  We will see. 

Then, there’s Bug Summer–Damsels and Dragons, a particular picture book I’ve been stewing about for a year.  Stewing.  Another food word.  I must be hungry.  Anyway, Dragonflies is going well, just not particularly fast.  But I did manage to publish 2 this year—SnowAngels and Sylvia McBye Learns To Fly—both of them unplanned, but ones that I’m extremely happy with.  And there are a variety of other projects on my list–oh yes, I am a prodigious listmaker.  But, I can’t just sit down and do ANY of them right now.  Photography is part of it, sure, and believe me, I love the business. 

My kids are the other part. 

Autumn is our favorite time of year.  Halloween just edges out Christmas on their Holiday Top One Hundred, and I think it’s more than fistfuls of candy.  We all dress up, you see, even The Hubby and I.  The week before Halloween is fraught with emergency sewing, hot glueing, and frantic phone calls to The Hubby requesting “More blood!  We’ve got to HAVE MORE BLOOD!”   We gather jewel-toned leaves and dip them in hot wax.  We encase our yard in spiderwebs, prop pumpkins and mums in every corner, prepare for classroom Halloween parties, and finally, stalk through darkened neighborhoods requesting sugary sustenance.  In fact, the last part is probably the LEAST important—it’s the month-long getting ready that thrills all of us.  Well, most of us, anyway.  Hubby doesn’t quite understand the fuss, but he goes along, mostly with good nature. 

This year, it’s all I can do to just keep swimming (to quote Dory).  Starting new writing/illustration projects just isn’t in the cards.  BUT, my ideas do go on the LIST, the one I keep in the arty little journal next to my bed.  I will keep rolling with Buck’s Rodeo as well–it’s really one of my favorite projects I’ve ever begun.   A bit haunting, really, and magical, and even though the story itself is set in the summertime, it is perfect for this time of year.

For now, it’s all I can do.  See, I’m writing for kids, stories I think will delight them and maybe broaden their love of nature AND their reading skills at the same time.  But when my own children call, and Halloween is in the air, well, everything else falls away.  I put my ideas on the back burner and let ‘em simmer, knowing that this putting-off isn’t forever.  Soon, this family of mine will be all grown up, and not needing me any more at Halloween, or at any other time, mostly.  So, I put on my costume, and forget the stories for a while.  Winter will be here before we know it.  Snowbanks will pile up against the front door (especially if it’s like LAST winter) and we will stay inside, eating pots of stew and chili, watching the white world through the frosty picture window.  The photography will slow a bit, and the world will seem to freeze in place.  Then I will look at my list and dig into it, writing stories, illustrating, imagining. 

But for now, I will spend my time DOING–drizzling caramel apples, cutting construction paper pumpkins, jumping in piles of crisp leaves.  The kids need it, and so do I.

So, I went to parent-teacher conferences last week. A joyful evening of hearing how well my kids have done, or (because I take every bad event personally) how bad a parent I am. Fortunately, I didn’t have many of those latter moments. They’re good kids. But I did have a really thought-provoking exchange with one of my oldest child’s teachers. All about computers.

In school–wait, let me qualify–in OUR school, we have a 1 to 1 laptop initiative. All students in 6th grade through 12th grade have access to their own assigned MacBook during school hours and the upper grades get to take these babies home with them–or wherever else they roam, like cruising in their beater-cars, parking, basketball practice–you know, the standard teenage perches. Of course, the kids LOVE this concept, and the the faculty appears to be walking in tall cotton as well–they each get their own little handy-dandy MacBook  as  well, you see. Now, I have NOT investigated where the money comes from to purchase these little tech-miracles, but I would imagine Apple provides a good amount of it, along with technology grants and maybe a few bux from the general fund as well. And to me, it is all well and good.   Kids need to learn how to write documents in Word and put together slide show presentations, fine.   We no longer contribute (as much) to the tree-killing paper industry.  Lots and lots of job preparation, because computers are EVERYWHERE, woven nearly completely into the fabric of our vocations, whatever they may be. 

So, I’m sitting down at a table with this teacher, and no, I’m not gonna mention names, and I have dealt with this teacher before and never had anything but positives given or received.  I was shown my daughter’s grades on one of these cute lil’ machines, and the teacher told me how well she had been doing, no problems at all, and her KEYNOTE speech was especially wonderful.  Now, at first I thought he was talking about, like, a keynote speaker in a presentation instead of a computer program, because I am a PC, thank you.  (Shocked gasp!)  When I got started I couldn’t afford hip, I could only afford something thatworked pretty well.   And here I am, 12 years later, with 4 of  ‘em.  Anyway, through my amazingly fast deductive reasoning skills, I figured out KEYNOTE is basically PowerPoint in a Mac software bundle.  Fine.  And then this teacher said something tothe effect that the school-issued Macs really allowed you to do so much more with learning and, to paraphrase wildly, that soon we would have the cure for cancer because 8th graders in our village can check Facebook while Googling facts for their history Keynote presentation that is incidentally riddled with cool and creative transitions and sound effects. 

I had actually been gathering my purse and coat to leave and go discuss my perfect child’s perfection with another teacher, but after those words came out, well, the race was on, baby.  I looked regretfully down at the table and the Mac and said “You know, I don’t think so.”  My husband was standing behind me, and I could literally hear the thoughts he was broadcasting—what in the world are you doing let’s just get out of here who cares just let it go for once woman–and I could see my daughter antsying around on her perfect little feet, embarrassed as all get-out.  (We say things like that in Rodeo Town USA.)  “Well, a lot of parents think that” was the reply. 

“Listen,” I said, getting up a head of steam now.  “I do creative work for a living.  I use computers all day long for my work, so I know.”  Now, looking back on it, I wonder exactly why I said that…..really, the “so I know” part sounds pretty stupid to me, like because I sit at my desk chained to my monitor, well that makes me an expert at…..expertness, at least in this field.  But I did say it, asinine as it was.  

“Well, yes.”  The teacher smiled uneasily.  In a small town, it is common knowledge what we all do for a living.  I am sure, that as a self-defined photographer/artist/writer/eccentric person I am held in dubious regard by most of the population.

“A computer doesn’t make you more creative, and it doesn’t teach you to solve problems.  I understand the reason that funding is available for laptops is because tech is where the jobs are.”

“Exactly!”  It was apparent I was getting the point.

“But, I don’t think access of information makes you a terrific problem solver and gives you the abilities to think around corners.”  My daughter was practically ballet-ing her anxiety at this point, but I plowed on. “Listen, if I go to a doctor with a problem, I don’t want a doctor who is able to look something up……I want a doctor who can think around a corner and really solve my problem.”  Which is true.. 

“Yes, well, you’re right there.”  More assertive now, because who could disagree with the concept that doctors should have more of an understanding of what’s going on than a simple Google search will remedy. 

“Look, I just think we are placing too much emphasis on tech instead of good old problem solving skills.  Kids that are exposed to computers at a young age don’t learn how to use their creativity to solve problems.  They just Google search the answers.  “  Michael was brainwaving me to move on now and the daughter was edging away from me so I stood up and smiled and said goodbye and that was it. 

“How could you have done that?” hissed my daughter in my ear. 

Well, let’s see.  How could I?  First of all, knowing how to run Keynote doesn’t show creativity.  All it shows is that you know how to run a program.  The people who designed Keynote?  Well, yes, I’ll give them the nod for creativity.  But that isn’t me, or you, or my perfect daughter.  Just ’cause people rush out to purchase the next Steve Jobs miracle doesn’t mean they will magically absorb some of his creative thought processes, his hipness or his love for black turtlenecks.  He is the creator here, people.  All you did was buy something that made you feel trendy.  Just because you know how to run Photoshop doesn’t automatically turn you into a creative genius either, although it does require a bit of discipline and style to do it well. 

In any creative pursuit, a computer is just another kind of paintbrush.  An expensive paintbrush, yes.  One that requires you to learn how to handle it first, all of its keystrokes and shortcuts, the heft of it, the ins and outs.  Some of the programs might make things easier to accomplish, or make you move faster.  I use Corel Painter a lot, because it gives me a load of different art mediums and paper textures and variables I can control all in one little package without dirtying my hands or my cracker-box house.  And when I first got that little program, I felt the magic.  “Oooooooh, ” I breathed.  “This is going to make me look soooooo gooooood.”  But really, what made me look good was all the years I spent drawing and painting and using my brain creatively.  The rest was just about mastering the program’s learning curve.  In other words, I had to learn how to hold the brush. 

When I go talk to schools about my books and art and photography, both the children and the school staff are transported by the art I do.  And I don’t believe for a second it’s because of the quality of my art.  They are in awe of art of any kind that they feel they can’t do.  I can’t tell you how many times people say “I couldn’t do that in a million years.”  And my reply is always “Oh, yes you can”.  I explain to every child and adult in the school that I am now 40.  My drawing practice started at age 1.  39 years of practice, people.  39 years of practicing every day.  Do anything long enough and you’re gonna get good at it.  And for those of you who think computers will save us, only in the last 5 or 7 did I do a lot of art on my computer.  Most of it was old-fashioned pencils and paper and erasers and paints.  Crap scattered all over the kitchen table.  All over my room.   

Now, my paltry skills aside, Einstein didn’t have a computer.  He didn’t have an iPhone with 300 apps inside.  He just learned to think by…..wait for it…….thinking!  He put in the time and discipline, and whatever freakish natural ability he had to think his way out of a paper bag and there you have it.  Theory of Relativity.  Here’s another thought.  Steve Jobs didn’t have a computer either, when he first started.  Neither did Bill Gates.  But they did have the ability to see a need and fill it.  Look at what they have wrought.  So, it really makes me think that when we are allowing our kids to spend all their time with tech—-computers, video games, whatever—they are actually missing out on the very experiences that make good creative thinkers—those experiences that forge new connections in the human brain that facilitate the creative problem-solving process.  Giving  a child a hammer, some nails, a bunch of old boards and a tree, well, not only are you facilitating a tree house, but you are letting that kid work out their brain.  Build those muscles!  Design!  Create!  Smash your thumb a few times!  Same thing when you give them a box of crayons and a sheaf of blank paper.  Or let them go outside and blow bubbles.  Or read them a book and have them come up with their own story.  Or let them play with toys in the bathtub. 

Growing creative thinkers ain’t rocket science.  Our brains are geared for it.  We come into this world armed with insatiable curiosity and boundless energy.  All we need is time, space, a few very simple tools, and encouragement.  Humans are natural problem-solvers.  But if placed in front of tech for too long  too early in our development, people get lazy.  We let the computer do the work.  We become distracted from the real work of our brains, which is to create, and just watch the pretty pictures on the screen.  Do computers make us dumb?  I wonder.  Or at least, do they change our problem solving skills for the worse? 

I don’t know.  I do know that we limit tech time at home.  Severely.  Children are experiential creatures.  They need sun and water and snow and dirt and mud to grow properly.  There will be plenty of time for tech someday.  Their jobs will be chock full of it, as well as their school experiences.  They are smart.  They will be fine.  For now, and I hope for always, the computer will be nothing but a tool.  Not a religion.  Not a cult. 

Just another paintbrush.

“Wow” said the woman across the table from me.  “Where did you get your training in art?”  She was smiling into my face and thumbing through my newest children’s book Snow Angels.  “Well, ” I replied in my standard answer to this FAQ, “I went to college for clothing design, and so I took art for that, but really, it was because of my upbringing.  See, my mom was an art teacher, so art and drawing was just something I did every day.”  She smiled and nodded and murmured “Oh, I see!” although by the look in her face it was clear that she really didn’t understand, but she did buy a book, which I signed and sent off with a smile and an inner hope that the child receiving it would be transported by the art inside. 

When I speak in front of schools and groups about what I do, I always have a portion of my program where I show lots of images of fine works of art by true creative masters.  Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Picasso, Grant Wood, Warhol—samples of their works are projected bigbig on the walls of cafeterias and classrooms.  And then, I show a slide of my work.  It is a finely crafted piece titled “Mommie” and it was completed when I was 3.  The scrawling ball point pen gives the indication of a human head, with looped eyes, scarecrow hair, and a wild mouth—if you tilt your head the right way.  It always brings a laugh, sort of a tension breaker from all those amazing but unattainable pieces of art.  I then show other samples of mine, sort of a progression of works that go clear through the present day.  Not to show that I am a master of art or anything else.  I just want to show that as I grew up, I got better.  But the key, the ONLY thing that really made me better was not the simple maturation process, but instead, the reality that nearly every day I was drawing.  EVERY DAY I PRACTICED.  I try to demystify art.  There is no magic here, no phenomenal, untouchable talent.   I would bet my life that momma da Vinci and Mother Picasso had drawings that little Leo and young Pablo had completed that looked nearly identical to the one I did for my mom.  And I would similarly bet that Mother Brees has those same drawings stashed away from little Drew.  Same goes for Donald Trump’s mom.  For everyone’s mom.  When it comes to art, we all start at the beginning. 

What is the difference, then, between a Picasso and a car salesman?  Well, for one, desire.  Apparently, I had the desire to do art.  It really tripped my trigger.  It was just what I did.  I also had the extreme good fortune to have a culture of art in my home.  More on that later.  I would say the most important contributing factor to my current abilities would be practice.  Just as a pro basketball player throws countless baskets every day, I spent countless hours, countless pencils, countless sheets of paper just drawing what I saw every day.  I still do.  My dad golfs—has for most of his adult life.  He says that a lot of it is muscle memory.  So it is with art.  You practice drawing lines, and sooner or later, those lines become second nature.  They become rote.  The basics become firmly entrenched so that you can focus instead on expression, on composition and content and message.  Muscles in your brain get stronger and stronger.  But the difference is that unlike hitting a golf ball, which is a very specific pattern of muscle control used for just one thing, the creative muscles you strengthen when you do art—when you practice art—can be applied to other areas of life as well. 

Now, not everyone who makes art their practice is going to end up a professional artist.  Not everyone who takes 10 years of piano lessons will end up with a career as a classical pianist.  But, I will argue, that it is the process that is important, not whether your work is hanging in a museum somewhere.  Art—any creative art—is teaching problem solving.   First problem to solve as a small child—how to draw the human face?  After all, human faces are the most important thing—as infants, human beings know this.  So, we grasp our fat crayons in our chubby fingers and work on it.  We scribble and scrabble and go through reams of paper and maybe some walls as well, and for months, maybe a couple years before we are able to render that round head with two eyes, a nose and a mouth.  But we do it.  We all do it.  We solve that problem.  Then we move on to another.  We draw houses and cars and our pets and suns and skies.  All of these drawings are teaching us to think creatively.  To solve problems.  Art has that power.  If we stick with it—if we are lucky enough to have encouragement and materials and the feeling that art is valuable–then we progress on to harder problems.  How do we render a cube?  How do we draw buildings in perspective?  How do we shade?  How do we progress to really drawing what we see?  And after that, how do we draw with feeling? 

Now, by this time, those creative muscles in your brain are getting pretty strong.  You are getting so you can think outside the box, think around corners.  This is a very very valuable skill.  You can use it anywhere, for literally anything.  I don’t know about you, but when I go to a doctor with a physical problem, I want to go to one who can think creatively.  I want creative people working on our dependency on foreign oil.  Our society needs creative thinkers to solve major world issues–poverty, hunger, disease.  So, you see, the practice of art doesn’t necessarily mean you will spend your life in a studio painting still life.  But it does mean that whatever job you do choose will be enhanced by those creative abilities—teacher, lawyer, physicist, coach, manager, computer programmer, social worker, nurse—literally every job you could ever want to have.  You will be a better thinker.  Which translates into a better problem solver.  That is what humanity needs.  Desperately.

So, how do we accomplish this?  What is the secret?  The only way I know is the old fashioned way.   Start at home.  Create a culture of art in your home, for you and your children.  Have art supplies on hand all the time.  Encourage your children to use them whenever they are “bored”.  Go to the store and spend the same amount of money on art supplies like crayons and watercolors and paper and paints as you would on one game for your game console and you will be set up for years, I guarantee it.  And can anyone reading this guess what I’m going to say about gaming?   I bet you can.  Hey, I’m no purist.  Our family has a console.  We have several computers.  We have strict time limits on all our electronic devices.  As I tell my kids when they ask for more time with an electronic amusement: “No, it makes your brain stupid.”  They get a little time each weekend to play their games.  After that, we say one of several things.  Go outside.  Read a book.  Do art.  Lots of times, they choose the art.  Because they can.  We have a couple drawers full of scraps and glue, a jillion crayons and paint, paper, scissors…..you get the idea.  They drag it all out and just do art—whatever they want to do.  Occasionally, I will direct them in a project, but only occasionally.  Most of the time, they get lost in their own imaginiations, quietly working at the table and then proudly showing me their results.  I don’t get obsessed about the mess they create.  It all cleans up.  So, we have a culture of art in our house.  It isn’t hard.  Or painful.  Or stressful.  Or expensive.  But I do know that it is challenging their brains in ways they are not challenged in organized, teach-to-the-test public education.  And when you compare art activities to gaming, well, that is like comparing the nutritional value of a bowl of fruit to a bag of chips.  There is no comparison. 

Art is a gift, that is what I have heard.  “Oh, Tracy, you have such a gift.”  But here’s the deal.  It’s only a gift because I had the tools, the art culture as I was growing up.  My family gave me that—it was their gift to me.   And I know it is a gift I can pass on.  We can all pass it on to our kids and then to our society.  I personally think this is a societal imperative.  Do we need kids who know how to run every smart phone app and how to win Mario Brothers?  Will that help them to be successful in their jobs?  Will it make them healthier, happier people?  We need creators.  We need innovators.  We need those around-the-corner thinkers who can cure cancer, who can design a system of renewable energy that is non-polluting and affordable.  Pick a problem.  No matter how big.  I can’t think of one that will be helped by knowing World of Warcraft backwards and forwards.  Put your time and your money and your thoughts into educating our kids and ourselves in the arts.  Give ‘em a box of crayons and let ‘em go.  They’ll eat some and color with some.  And eventually, someday,  they may just change the world.

Been to an art gallery recently?  Checked out any great Impressionists, mulled over chiaroscuro, appreciated the rhythm and flow of modern sculpture?  If you say “no”, you’re in the majority.  I happen to be right there in the majority, too.  Especially since I had kids.  Hey, what can I say?  I love art.  Feasting my eyes on something transcendent hanging on a wall or magnificently filling a space makes me more human.  And it makes me want to do great art myself.  But one thing it doesn’t make me want to do is take my kids to the art gallery with me.  I honestly think I have good kids.  They work hard in school, they listen as well as they can, they at least give the appearance of doing their chores.  However, I can imagine how a day at the art museum might go.  First of all, it wouldn’t be a “day”.  It would be however long I could bribe them to behave.  If you have kids, you get that particular transaction.  “If you’re good for the __________ (you fill in the blank) we will go for ice cream.”  Or to the zoo.  Or for pizza.  Or whatever currency your children currently understand.  And then we would go to the art museum, and instead of appreciating the meticulous beauty of Seurat, my kids are making figure eights around the modern sculptures and darting amongst adult art appreciators who are standing stiffly in front of various pieces thinking to themselves “why did she bring her kids to this?”  And between my frequent exhortations to remember our “deal” I would be thinking the same thoughts, only blacker.  Of course, larger museums have “childrens activities” which are great.  But it doesn’t guarantee a peaceful day at the museum either.  An hour, maybe.  Not much time for pondering.  Maybe I am a ponderous ponderer.  Whatever. 

My point here, is that none of us are exposed to art like we should be.  Our children are especially deprived.  Schools don’t have the budget for art programs.  Parents don’t have the time to sit down and color with the kids, or they don’t want the mess of art—and let’s face it, art is messy.   Most families don’t have great works hanging on their walls.  Most people are intimidated by art.  Lots of grown ups feel they were “bad” at art, and that art is something you either have the ability for, or you don’t, so, they just don’t really provide opportunity for kids to do it.  But, hey, is that a gaming console beside the tv?  It is?!  Well, yeah, but it keeps those kids so quiet and so occupied and so happy (can you say addicted?) and I get so much done.  Well, I’m not getting into that one, at least not today, but it is food for thought. 

But, if you are like most people with children, you go into your kids rooms and you see stacks and stacks of children’s books.  My kids have veritable “towers” of books, always in danger of toppling.  Grandparents give them as gifts, they get gift cards to various stores, they bring home book orders which we always peruse and usually purchase from.  Kids look at them and tote them around and color in them and rip pages out of them.  A favorite might be read a hundred or a thousand times.  And for me, the best part of these book is the art they contain.  Oh, yes, they are called illustrations, aren’t they?  As if that somehow is different from what is hanging in that museum that I never get to go to anymore.  As if illustrations aren’t real art.  Or they’re cheaper.  But the reality is, children’s books are just filled with art, some of it really amazing stuff.  Candy for your eyes and imagination.  All of it in the comfort of your very own kid’s messy bedroom.  Where the Wild Things Are.  Not the movie, mind you, but the book.  A whole world created in 20 or so pages.  To me, a perfect visual poem.  The art nearly tells the story without words.   Most of our piles of children’s books are like that.  There are always clunkers, mind you.  But you wouldn’t know the good without the bad, would you?  So, instead of museums, my kids and I look at books.  We talk about the stories, but I also try to talk about the pictures.  How did the artist do that?  Why do you think the artist drew it that way?  What feelings do you have when you look at that illustration?  And then, maybe, we try to draw something in that same style.  Or with that same feeling.  And the kids, they eat it up.  They learn to appreciate art a little bit, every evening with every bedtime book we read.  We all get inspired.   An art museum, right in our own homes.  No admission required, no bribery necessary.   And we can check it out in our pajamas.