6-year-old was getting hangry at the pizza joint so I suggested we draw each other’s portraits. He wins again.
Being a parent is like being an artist
Jerry Saltz, in “How To Be An Artist”:
As artist Laurel Nakadate has observed, being a parent is already very much like being an artist. It means always lugging things around, living in chaos, doing things that are mysterious or impossible or scary. As with art, children can drive you crazy all day, make you wish all this could go away. Then in a single second, at any point, you are redeemed with a moment of intense, transformative love.
I like this version, too::
“Art and kids are very similar: You have to lug stuff around, your home is always a mess, you never know what’s coming next, you are horrified by what you’ve done, and then you’re redeemed by a burst of transformative love.”
Above image: a painting by Erik Westra’s girls. (He gave them a “24-hour pass” to cover the walls before a home renovation). Below: a painting by the great Cy Twombly.
Phew that was a close one
Sometimes when the 6-year-old and I get mad at each other we just pass notes back and forth under his bedroom door.
Listening to your materials
Jon Klassen (author of the fantastic Hat trilogy) shares this quote with people who ask him how to get kids writing and drawing more.
He explained in a tweet thread:
i take “the dictation of the materials” to mean that there are things that certain forms or tools “like” to do more than other things. certain kinds of mediums make for certain kinds of drawings, a picture book format makes for certain kinds of stories (loosely speaking).
being able to analyze what the materials WANT to do is such a huge part making anything & seems like rather than getting kids to specifically write something or draw something, getting them to think about that is way more broadly useful.
because you end up applying it yourself. you are a material with strengths and weaknesses. being able to look at what you’re working with objectively and decide what to make based on that is such a huge part of this job, at least it has been for me.
(relating to getting kids writing/drawing, materials give parameters. like giving them only a black marker means they might start thinking about drawings that only need that – what picture does that marker WANT to make? now they are solving a problem instead of “draw something!”)
(where that applies to writing, for me, was the absence of narration. i don’t know what to do with it, so i’m left with dialogue. what do stories with visuals and only dialogue WANT to do? they want to be about lying a lot, apparently.)
I’ve written a lot more about Albers and her idea of materials dictating the work in my previous post, “Materials, man.” (For more on materials and kids making stuff, check out “On Chuck Jones, Parenting, and Art Supplies.”)
Always drawing
The six-year-old is taking art classes at Laguna Gloria. I love dropping him off because while he’s in class, the 3-year-old and I get to explore the grounds. (An older dad told me years ago how important it is to split your kids up once in a while and go on little one-on-one “dates” together.) Yesterday the 3-year-old was having some serious separation anxiety (my wife is out of town), so I put some paper down on the stone ledge around the tiny koi pond and told him to draw the plants. This is what he drew.
- ← Newer posts
- 1
- …
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- …
- 27
- Older posts→