Contemporary Art a la Five Year Old

Actual transcript of a conversation with V as she was getting into the bathtub tonight:

Mom: "Why do you have green marker all over your bottom?"

V: (grinning) "I was making a peanut!"

M: "A peanut?"

V: "Yeah! A peanut with my BUTT!"

M: "A peanut with your butt?!?"

V: "Yeah!"

At which point girl-child sat down on the bathroom floor and mimed tracing her naked cheeks with a green marker.

V: "I sat on a piece of paper and made a peanut. Then I cut it out!"

She then raced (naked) out of the bathroom and returned, triumphantly, with her peanut.

I think I should apply for an arts grant for her, don't you?

the peanut in question

Picasso-esque

My little girl drew this portrait of me when I was four, and I thought you'd like to see how much I've changed since then.

Putting on a different hat

I went out for coffee tonight with my friend Leslie. She's a musician, and is taking a break from her day job to immerse herself in her passion. She was gracious enough to approach me as a creative person rather than the pragmatic mother-of-two personality I usually wear, and it was delightful to stretch my imagination. The walls of the coffeehouse were hung with bright, intriguing paintings, and L suggested we write responses to two of them. It was such a different activity for me. Recently I have silently mourned the loss of creativity in my life, fearing that it was dead, but I am reassured tonight that I suffer only atrophy and not true death. I get caught up in the cut-and-paste crafting of early childhood; I must reach beyond that and allow myself to play. Hopefully that will revive a part of me I thought lost. In the meantime, perhaps I can find a more interesting use for popsicle sticks and yarn fragments. We'll see.