After the first day spent at school I was smiling to myself as I realized it would be a miracle for me to get through these four days alone.
This
spring I was fortunate enough to join one lovely primary school for the arts week’s activities with kids. It was supposed to be a week but because of my overlooking and double booking (no matter how much I believe in magic, I still couldn’t make myself be in two places at the same time), it turned out to be four days. Now, I’m not one of those organized people who have everything in the diary, nevertheless, I respect other peoples’ time and if I make a commitment I like to stick to it. Therefore, once I realized my mistake I was very disappointed and upset with myself. I just couldn’t believe that over the period of five months not even once I had even the slightest doubt about the date… It was just so odd, because I was actually looking forward to this experience and felt excited about it.
After the first day spent at school I was smiling to myself as I realized it would be a miracle for me to get through these four days alone. Lets just say that working with a big group of kids (or a big group of anybody, in fact) is not my calling. And if it wasn’t for anything else, realizing just that was a great step forward for me as a person. Somebody must have known that too well and made sure to shorten my misery just before I lost all my senses. Well, despite of this little inconvenience that a school is naturally a very big group of kids, I’ve learned to really enjoy my time spent there. My workshop was painting a shed with the kids outside. Believe it or not it didn’t rain all these four days, but it rained on Friday! It didn’t matter though, because the shed was finished, and being as bright and colourful as it is, it was smiling even in the rain. Everyday I had two groups of around ten kids in each group working with me on the shed. I’m not going to lie, there were times when I wished I could paint this shed by myself, no matter how many hours it would take me, no matter how many miles I would have to drive every time, and no matter how much money it would cost me. Honestly, I could’ve signed up for nearly anything at that stage, if only I didn’t have to face another group again… I had made a commitment though to be working with the kids, so I had to do what I had to do. The paintings that the kids have done kept me going. And the beautifully packed lunches with love and care from my tutor kept reminding me that, really, I’m just one of those kids myself – I wouldn’t have wanted my tutors to give up on me or on a group that I belonged to. I knew it wasn’t the kids’ fault, every one of them was lovely, helpful and willing to do the work. It was the fact that they were in a group. Kids are very egocentric,
group vs ego and naturally a group is the biggest enemy of an ego. Thus, egos start to compete creating chaos. It’s not something happening only in the groups of children. The phenomenon stretches throughout the person’s life. The only difference is that an adult learns somewhat to control the ego and can understand the benefits of belonging to certain groups. Whereas for the children the other doesn’t exist, it’s only the “me”. You can only imagine what happens with ten of “me” in one room.
Once I realized that the intricacies of a group didn’t excite me much, I concentrated on the shed. My goal was to finish the shed on time and to make sure that the kids do their best with it. They didn’t need much encouragement. As long as the kids knew what was going on and what was expected of them, they did brilliantly. Not even one kid told me he/she couldn’t draw or was scared of mixing the colours. The kids just went for it. There wasn’t a fear to fail, or to do something wrong. They all acted like Picassos in their own right – proud and confident of their work. Everyone was an expert on the exact colours they wanted to use for their paintings and sometimes (cheekily) even the quantities of it. They just didn’t have any boundaries to their imagination. The kids are so creative, and the shed is a wonderful example of that. Nothing seemed impossible to them. For adults my idea to paint a shed with the kids came across as maybe a bit too ambitious. In the meantime, the kids, when told that we will be painting a shed, asked me if we were painting the inside of the shed as well! It seems the kids don’t measure an activity by the effort they have to put into it but rather by the fun they have while doing it. If they enjoy the activity they could go for hours and hours. Of course, different children find fun in different activities, in different disciplines, and that’s how people adopt various professions. However, being creative seems to be the shortest way to their happiness. There are no rules in art. This freedom makes it possible for them to be right every time they do something, and who doesn’t like being right!? Sadly, as they grow, they pick up the judgments of the grownups’ world, where even a drawn tree has to look a certain way. Even the uncontrollable becomes controlled because control and order make life easier.
children are so good at making art, they simply express that uncontrollable freedom and energy that is inside of them. There is never too many colours for them, or clashing colours, or too odd shapes, – everything is exactly as it has to be because that's how they feel it should be.
creative
I’m very glad to have been a part of this beautiful project at the school, and can only hope that the kids will remember these fearless moments of creation when the time comes for them to make critical decisions. Hope you’ll enjoy looking through this amazing art - It is difficult to miss the honest and true emotions that they have put into the paintings.
The paintings almost make one wonder,
“What if. .…
“What if... just for a moment again we looked at the world through the eyes of a child and realized that everything is still possible!”