Love.
All different kinds of it. Copious amounts of it. Sometimes the kind that pulls you in tight, other times, the type that leaves you be. Crazy love, serene love, messy love, clean love.
I teach kindergarten art at my daughter’s school. Every Thursday afternoon we sit down together, fold an origami crane, and then do a project. Recently I showed the kids the Love sculpture by Robert Indiana. I cut the letters L-O-V-E out of cardboard and we traced them onto watercolor paper. Then we slid them down and over, and traced them again to make the letters look three-dimensional. I said to the children, you can choose any colors you want for your L-O-V-E, and for the background, as long as you mix them up for contrast. I showed them how to shade the background evenly, in the same flat way I’d been taught to do renderings in architecture offices. My charges watched me closely, and did their best. And their best was so much better, just brimming with love. Always, always, I am the student in the end.
My friend Andy Moore sent me to your website today and I LOVE this post!
Hi, Kirsten, thank you for your nice comment. So glad you’re here!
Whitney thanks for this story… I love the way children put themselves fearlessly and fully into their creations. Their vantage point is unique.
I too volunteer as an art instructor at my children’s school and I just did a project in my son’s 1st grade class this afternoon, based on Joan Miro’s People and Dog in the Sun. When I turned the painting upside down, one of the students commented that, “Hey it’s my mom cleaning up spilt orange juice with my little brother.” He was so serious I had to forcibly suppress my smile. Children see and create so sincerely!
Thanks again for sharing.
Jackie, your project sounds great. Upside-down interpretations rock. Sometimes when I’m in a jam designing a building, I’ll rotate the plan 90 degrees. A breakthrough sometimes ensues.