I stopped in to see the kids' art class at the King Township Museum on Saturday morning. The topic was 'bead buddies." I didn't know what to expect, but found the instructor explaining how to make animal shapes using different coloured beads in a pattern. One little girl named Julie Ann was working intently, making a little bunny. I asked if the bunny had a name. Silly me. Of course it had. "Sally," she told me.
Sally and Julie Ann became close friends as soon as the last bead was in place and the last knot was tied. Sally was going home with Julie Ann and her new home would be a perch on top of a much-loved back pack. As I watched Julie Ann interact with her creation, I was struck by the strong bond between kids and art. They embrace it in a personal way that few adults can. They concentrate with their whole being. For them art is work, not play. They are learning several skills all at once: hand-eye co-ordination, the colour spectrum, geometry and, above all, self-expression.
I have often observed my 2 year-old grandaughter at her easel. She clenches the marker or the paint brush tightly in her fist, and she screws her face up in a look of determination that adults only exhibit at a betting table with high stakes. She focuses entirely on the paper as she makes lines, circles, and dots, creating a design that only she can identify. She grabs the brown marker. "Oh brown!! she squeals. "I didn't use brown for a long time!" She whips off the top and makes huge brown spirals in the centre of her page.
How glorious it would be if only adults had that much enthusiasm fot the brown things in life.
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