..........is children's art. Splashes, brushes and puddles of color, texture, shape, and feeling. Even before I had children when I was training to be a therapist, I recognized and celebrated and believed in the validity of something so powerful, so expressive, so raw. I derived real joy out of watching children create and absorbing themselves in the process......they are so good about that! And I learned from them something about reclaiming the artist in me, about creating without the limitations of what people think. About making messes, not worrying how much paint or clay or glue is on their hands or the table, about putting whatever comes to mind onto the paper or medium with which they are working. Sadly, my daughter has just recently begun making statements like "This doesn't look like a flower" and "I didn't do it right, I need another piece of paper." And I have quickly attacked these statements by encouraging her to create, to refrain from identifying aspects of her art as mistakes, to just express herself and play with the art! I am afraid that school and others' comments are setting her on the road to losing her confidence in her own artistic expression, and I am bound and determined to put a stop to it. I have always had a pretty wide-open art policy in our home.....create to your heart's content, and it can be cleaned up later....this explains why if you come over for dinner to our house, you are likely to see dried clay in the cracks of the table and floor, or smudges of paint on the oak surface....or even find yourself sitting on a few stray beads or dried droplets of glue. And I really don't care. I like these reminders that that table has been a home for my children to create and dream and express. I just created an ART space for them in the basement where they can create while I scrapbook; it is stocked with all kinds of mediums--colorful paint, feathers, beads, glue, foam, pipe cleaners, felt, glitter, to name a few--and they can use it however and whenever they want to. When the mood hits, they can paint. If paint gets on the carpet, oh well. If they feel like mixing the colors of playdough together to make every imagineable shade of brown, and then sticking feathers and sticks into it, so be it. Who am I to set the limits on their imagination. I am much more interested in nurturing their creative spirit and preserving their sense of themselves as an artist, than in keeping my house spotless and my carpet paint-free. In our other house, I let Kennedy paint on the wall of my scrap room with bright red paint; at only 3 years old, she created a wonderful scene of people, animals, and wonderfully fanciful images that I couldnt' precisely identify--nor was it important that I did. They were her art, her expression, her view of some wonderful world in her mind. I always wondered what people thought of when they visited or when we put the house for sale, and our little girl's bright-red mural graced one whole wall of the room. It just made me happy, both seeing her create it and having it permanently on the wall. The painting above is one that Kennedy just created last week.....she entitled it "Flower Daylight Moon." It is gorgeous, and she was so proud of it. And she named it all on her own, without me even asking if she wanted to name it. OK, maybe I HAVE done something right in nurturing their creativity.....maybe I do have a chance to counteract any influences from outside that say it has to be done just one certain way, you have to use certain colors, etc. So all you parents and teachers out there....I urge you to let your children create! I mean really create! It supports their healthy development, infuses into them confidence and assertiveness, and helps them to express concepts that would otherwise be difficult to express verbally.....take it from this child therapist....it's one of the best and most healthy things you can do for a child......and one that will make you so thrilled as you see their joy in creating and in cherishing the finished product. Stop yourself from presenting a model, just the "right way of doing it" and let your kids go! You will likely be amazed at what they come up with when they don't have the notion that all they are supposed to do is copy the teacher's example. I know that "Flower Daylight Moon" is now one of my most cherished possessions in this world, and I can't wait to see what other creations my kids have within their souls. Cleaning up messes is daily routine work, but creating is soul work. Which one do you think is most important?
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