Art huh! What is it Good For?

I want my actions to follow the style of parenting I strive for, but there are plenty of times when decisions I make are affected by wanting to instill opposing values. The best example of this is Art.

If you have a preschool child you know that they churn out enormous amounts of Art*. Art is fantastic for lots of developmental reasons, the most obvious is developing creativity, but the muscles a child develops in their hands whilst drawing help them gain the strength and co-ordination they need to write at school. Knowing this means that at home we have an art shelf, which the kids have free access to. Beth also goes to pre-school and almost every day comes home with some art. Any group or play session we attend has an art space and even play dates can have you coming home with an arm full of A3 sugar paper with an almost microscopic scribble in the corner. We all have plenty of art!

our art problem....

The problem I have is trying to balance giving that art some value whilst trying to manage our family's predisposition to hoard. It is not as simple as picking out the best bits; creativity to a child can look quite abstract to us, and only rewarding a child when the picture looks like it is supposed to sends the message "you need to think like the world thinks". Equally I don't want my children to value possession more than the experience. I'd quite like it if they could be the type of people that could live their lives out of a suitcase if necessary and not worry about where their 1,500 childhood teddies are going to live, but with me and Dave as parents I'm not sure how likely this is.

These are a few of the solutions I've heard people use:


The Daddy's Work Office Solution

A colleague of Dave's suggested that art could be taken to work with daddy and then disposed of without hurting a child's feelings.  If we skip over the obvious sexism and presumption of family dynamics, this has some real merits; the art is out of the way, it has been praised and it has been valued. But there is a level of deception, it can create a false image of where daddy works which could unravel if your child visits.

The Conversion Theory
There are lots of companies that will now immortalise your child's art as a mug, mouse mat, piece of jewelry or even make stuffed toys from your children's drawings. The upside is that the art is now useful, and robust, so you don't end up hanging on to a scrap of dog-eared paper. However the items will be probably be bigger and the process is expensive, this will usually mean that the parent will pick the most impressive and classically "good" pieces, which takes away from enjoying the process.

The Wait and See Tactic
This is the is the most common one used in our house when Beth is particularly proud of a picture it goes on our wall, and stays there, forever, and ever, and ever, or at least till the blue tack falls off or I knock it down when dusting, the record is 3 years. Some of her art doesn't make it to the wall, unless its very important to her, the art she makes at school can be put in the nappy bag on the way home and forgotten about. By the time its rediscovered Beth's more able to let it go.

The Photobook Fix
This is one of the best ideas I've seen, the concept is to take a photo or a scan of your child's art and print out a year book of what the child has created, there are even apps that you can use to do it on your phone. I love this idea because you take photos of everything and shrink or crop them to fit multiple images on a page. Your child can also have creative input into selecting their favourites and putting them together and can even create a narrative for the photos if they want. The only downside I can see is that no matter what I do with the copies, will I ever be able to throw the originals away?

The Gifting Plan

As with most things prevention is better than a cure, and if you find yourself wanting to give your child opportunity to explore a new medium, its always good to let them know in advance that you're making this to pass it on. The perfect example is making wrapping paper, this can be done with sponge painting, potato printing, leaf art and finger paints; all you need is some art roll or lining paper and your chosen medium. You can also make cards and gifts for others; grandparents, neighbours and old ladies at church love these things, by pushing art on them your doing them a service really... honest ... Just don't be the parent that gets your kids to send me their art.... unless they are really good and it will make me millions, but you should probably get that independently verified.

The all art is temporary method

Another good prevention solution, is to encourage mediums that are by their very nature temporary, the best example of these are bath crayons and pavement chalks.

Bath Crayons.

*Please note that I decided not to use quotation marks, because that's good parenting....