I hear often that there’s no reason why we should waste money teaching art in school.  Never mind that the ENTIRE history of mankind has been told through art: 17,000 year old cave paintings of animals that don’t even exist anymore, 2,700 year old food jars painted with naked Greek soldiers trapsing off to battle (yes, naked!) and 200 year old paintings of revolutionary heroes and their ragtag countrymen fighting for freedom.  Art, in all its forms is human history.

Have you ever had a hobby, fiddled around on a guitar, made a Diamond Dot picture, crocheted a blanket, sewed a quilt?   If you have, you’ve made art.  Making something whether we keep it or give it away is our way of saying to the world “I’m here, I exist!”.  And those who cherish it reinforce the maker’s existence and their own as well as all the generations who tell the story behind the cherished item.  

When my granddaughter would come for a visit, we inevitably ended up in my craft space making something. It wasn’t anything complicated, just messing around with paper, paint and markers.  In all humility, I can say that whatever we made together was spectacular.

During school break last year my granddaughter and I went to a ceramic studio to make stuff.  We spent a few hours painting ceramic pieces surrounded by other people painting their pieces.  Sometimes my granddaughter and I talked and sometimes we didn’t, focused as we were on creating our masterpieces.

This memory brings me back to why we create and why it is important that our children create.  Creating allows us to exist in a pocket of time we rarely can do otherwise.  In our over busy, uber efficient world, making something grants us time to ruminate under the guise of being productive.  While we’re making, we’re thinking.  Some thoughts are about the making and others have nothing to do with what we’re making.  We’re lost in thought, not a tweet, a video or someone’s else thought but our very own, individual thoughts.  

Art in school introduces our children to the process of creating.  It gives them time to pause, to use art to express themselves in ways they couldn’t otherwise and above all, allows them to be with their thoughts.  

All those handmade cards, refrigerator masterpieces and macaroni jewlery are thanks to art in school.  Those giant, ear to ear grins they give us as they present what they made are thanks to the short time they were alone with their thoughts, thinking about making but also thinking about the intended receiver of their creation.  Each creation made and given in love.

To my way of thinking, you can’t really put a price on that.

Scrapbook Page: Crafting is my Superpower. Created November 2024.