The Art of Children
It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. – Pablo Picasso
Tonight, I attended the Pleasanton PTA Council 9th Annual meeting for the National PTA Reflections Art Recognition Program 2011-2012, at the Firehouse Arts Center in neighboring Pleasanton, California. I had judged the second phase of the competition in photography, for submissions by children of a wide range of ages. As I looked at the visual art, I saw my friend, Pat Smith, who is currently President of the Pleasanton Art League. I learned that she had judged the other visual art submissions.
The theme of the art was: “Diversity is…”
As we talked, Pat brought up the topic of the imagination and creativity of children, and how both are often lost with age. I brought up the Picasso quotation above, and mentioned how creativity and imagination are sometimes “educated” out of us. I told her that, in a particularly thrilling 
day that I spent with 4th graders, then 1st graders, then 5th graders, all in the same day this week (while continuously adjusting my sense of humor ), three 1st grade kids gave me drawings. One was a drawing of a reindeer, which looked like a cross of a Picasso and a Dr. Seuss (who actually was a visual artist as well as an author), under a blazing yellow sun and blue sky. A second was a pencil drawing of a fish, that reminded me a bit of the tank of fish with human faces in Monty Python‘s “The Meaning of Life,” with the faces “head-on” and the bodies “in profile.” A third was a drawing of a snowman in top hat and a wrapped present with bow. The three snowballs of the snowman (top-to-bottom) were colored orange, green, and yellow, and the wrapping paper was striped green, pink, and red – with a black bow. The snowman was signed “For Mr. H, Love ___ , with a student number. I still don’t understand the use of numbers for children in the schools, and I try not to think of the kids that way!
The drawings will join a large and growing collection of art from kids.
Pat and I sat on the edge of the auditorium of the Firehouse Arts Center, and we watched the recognition of the contributions of children in visual arts, photography, literature, musical composition, film/video production, and dance choreography – with slides of the visual art forms and performances of the literature, music, and dance.
There was a lot going on. The children in the audience were generally very patient, even the very young ones, perhaps as patient as some of the adults. The works were fascinating and revealing and RICH with imagination!
Working with children provides not only a “retrospective” of one’s own life, but also a glimpse of what could be. At a time in America when we might first sense that the world that we are passing to our children is WORSE for our having owned it, the freshness and optimism of children, as expressed in their art, serve to counterbalance our own fatigue and realism.
The wings of their own imaginations may yet allow us to take flight.
-Bill at
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