Art and About
Engaging with the creative force in everyday life

I keep notes on my computer when my kids say something about the arts that I find poignant. Many times, these thoughts turn into Art and About columns. Sometimes, I compile them, print them out and paste them into their scrapbooks. One day, I hope they will read their quotes and marvel at their wisdom at such a young age.

I noticed on my list that about a year ago, my daughter asked me an awkward question. She caught me sailing through the house during my cleaning routine and said, “Mama, listen to the song I made up about a guinea pig.” She sang the song, followed by the query, “I made that up. What song did you make up today?” I was so embarrassed. Oh my goodness, it was already 9:30 a.m. and I had yet to make up a song for the day. In fact, I hadn’t set aside any time on my schedule that day to make up a song, and I didn’t have the flexibility to squeeze a song in. I backed out of the room mumbling about getting back to my cleaning, admiring her attitude and feeling ashamed of my priorities.

In the past year, she has produced an oeuvre of original compositions. Some she sings once and forgets. Some she hums again and again while playing, riding in the car or taking a bath. A few, her brother has even picked up and begun humming. She doesn’t quite write a song a day (to my knowledge) but she is way ahead of my output.

When I tuned my ears to it, I started to realize that kids are writing and singing original compositions at school, on the playground, in grocery stores, restaurants, anywhere you can name. I help out in my son’s classroom and one young lady writes songs to help her do addition. She sings them to herself while she does equations in her head. Creative and practical!

I teach choir classes to preschoolers and kindergarteners and we have a periodic activity called “music sharing.” The kids thought it up. After a session full of singing songs I taught them, the children wanted to teach me some songs. I expected them to sing tried and true tot classics but that isn’t what they meant. They wanted to share songs they had written. I learn what is going on in their lives from those songs.

At the end of class we all sing a ditty I made up: “Sing the song that’s in your heart all the day through. Sing the song that’s in your heart and let your love shine through.” I wrote the song because we needed an age-appropriate class closer that I hoped would send a positive message about singing. Turns out, the kids are living this message every day, with our without my encouragement.

Adults don’t sing songs they made up at school, on playgrounds or in grocery stores. Adults have learned that there are “appropriate” places to sing, and “inappropriate” places to sing. As children, that is either what the adults in our lives told us, or it is what we learned from our peers at a certain age. What is that age? Probably about the same time we become self-conscious about everything else. Probably about the same time we start to try to be more like everyone else at the expense of our own uniqueness. Most of us never go back to making up a song a day, let alone singing it for the world to hear.

What would the world be like if we never lost that impulse? Would it end wars, feed the hungry or make the poor rich? Can you say with certainty that it wouldn’t? My little ditty may be more than just a preschool class closer. It could be an eye opener, if we open our ears to the music pouring from the hearts of the children.

Sing the song that’s in your heart all the day through. Sing the song that’s in your heart and let your love shine through.

I am captivated by the newest art statement in my house. When I’m in the room with it, I’m mesmerized by it. When I’m out of the room, I contemplate its color, composition and form. It is my new kitchen soap dispenser.

Most everything that goes in public view around our house gets over-thought by our personal design review committee co-chaired by my husband and myself. Heck, even the stuff in our private spaces is placed and displayed with great intention. It is Marshall McLuhan’s “The medium is the message” to the hilt. We’re overeducated control freaks striving to control the messages we’re sending through our art, our furniture, our accessories and even our utilitarian products. We buy handsome things, however we don’t go out of our way to make a full-fledged art statement with a simple spoon or a coffee maker or a vacuum. We like these items to be functional and within budget, and hopefully fit into our aesthetic ideals as well.

The soap dispenser was a quickie purchase made to replace our broken soap dispenser. I can’t say I didn’t think about my choice at all, but I certainly wasn’t looking to make an art statement. In fact, I didn’t want to draw attention to the soap dispenser at all. The one I was replacing was an oil-rubbed bronze that melded discreetly into our chocolate-brown Zodiac countertop. I doubt anyone looked twice at it, which was the goal.

The new dispenser is shouting for attention. It is a clear glass jar adorned with hand-painted red apples and variegated green leaves. It is probably more suitable in a country style kitchen than in our contemporary home. I like folk art, which is why it caught my eye, but I initially rejected it because of its country-ish flair. But the red and the green matched the color of our kitchen and the adjacent room, and like I said, I do like folk art, so I thought I would give it a try. Thematically, it sits within a few feet of a garden window in which I have three large glass bowls constantly filled with fruit, and I thought the motif might work. Still, with all this thought, I didn’t consider this an art purchase as I put it in my cart.

The magical moment occurred when I filled it with soap. We use a fairly standard anti-bacterial orange hand soap, which I actually find to be an unsettling color. But it is the one brand that our whole family agrees doesn’t smell too much like perfume and doesn’t feel too much like lotion. I have always bought opaque soap dispenser to hide the color. I knew I had made a big exception because of those apples on a clear jar.

But as that liquid soap filled the dispenser, it was transformed into glorious amber nectar creating a stunning backdrop to the apples and leaves. It looks like mango honey with the light shining through it. The color picks up on our copper backsplash and the array of autumn-hued flecks in the countertop. The vibrancy of the amber, red and green combination play off the bowls of tomatoes, oranges and lemons I currently have in the garden window. The scene buzzes with the energy of a successful still life.

Now, when I come out in the morning and flip on the kitchen light, I am greeted by this stunning display. In the afternoon, as I zip through the kitchen preparing meals and snacks, I take a moment to appreciate the dispenser. At night, when the dishwasher is filled and I shut down the kitchen for another day, I take one last look at the scenic sink area. I feel giddy from such an unexpected artistic interaction. It’s good to be out of control for a change.

My son came to the breakfast table with a pencil and paper and asked, “What’s your favorite drawing utensil, Mommy?” The question caught me off guard. It was an unusual topic to start the day’s communication. I also didn’t have an immediate answer. I only draw when I have to. Just about the moment I decided I to answer “pencil,” he jumped in and volunteered that his favorite drawing utensil was the pencil because he could erase stuff. I agreed that I would also pick the pencil for that reason.

If you have children, you may have been called upon to use your drawing skills in ways you haven’t attempted since you were a child. Of course, there are those of you who draw well and regularly, whether there are children or no children in your lives. Then there are the rest of us.

When my children were very young, I realized I had a lot of anxiety about drawing for them. I have always wished my brain and my hand had a little better relationship so that the pictures I see in my head come out the tips of my fingers through the pencil and onto the page. Intellectually, I understand how drawings are made of basic shapes put together. But even compiling shapes for me is a frustrating experience. If drawing were a foreign language, it would be like understanding vocabulary in my head but being unable to make it come out of my mouth.

I was comforted to learn that I wasn’t the only parent who was shy about drawing for her children. Being asked to draw a horse or an airplane was making parents sweat all around me. We shared insecurities about making unintentionally abstract art, which would cause our kids to furrow their brows and ask, “What is that, Mommy?”

One year, my sister-in-law gave my daughter the gift of a “paint date” for her birthday. My daughter was two and loved to paint, paint, paint. Auntie Erin came over and planned to spend the morning in painting nirvana. While the two were getting started at the easel, Erin confessed to me that she was worried about her own product. She envied my daughter’s uninhibited approach to paint, and wondered aloud why a two-year-old paints better than she does. I nodded in empathy.

I’ve been a mother for seven years now and I have collected many compliments on my drawings of horses and airplanes from my kids. They also like the way I paint. I’m starting to relax a little about drawing in front of them, and I am re-learning the basics of drawing as I talk them through making horses and airplanes themselves. I have been forced to draw more in the last seven years than I have since I was very young. I don’t remember being much of a doodler. Once words were in my grasp, I killed time by writing instead of drawing and my drawing development didn’t get very far. I am now making up for lost time.

Drawing happens to be my parental bugaboo. I know some parents feel self-conscious about their voices and are afraid to sing to their children. I know some feel funny about dancing in view of the children. To these people, I am the first one to encourage them to let loose in front of children. They are a very forgiving audience, and when they are young, their parents are godlike creatures whom they adore. Your kids don’t care if you sing off key or look like a dancing dork or are drawing-challenged. They love you because you’re you.

Maybe children are sent into our lives to help us un-inhibit ourselves. Maybe they are sent to free us from the creative chains of bondage we slap on ourselves. With children, we’ve all been given a creative second shot with a totally accepting and loving audience. Since this is the type of support we give them as they learn new skills, it’s a nice reciprocity when they provide us the same developmental encouragement.