ART

Finn's artistic self is coming through. At school, art time is very much about following directions. It is so painful to see all the kids 'art' up on the walls...everyone's work identical, every flower the same colors, etc. PAINFUL. But this is the way it's done and I'm doing my best to respect the method (and the madness.) To the school's credit they expose even the youngest kids to a wide variety of materials and techniques which I know no other school in Lusaka does. LICS primary arts program has a brilliant new teacher who really pushes the boundaries of the kids abilities and the administrations capacity to grasp the value of creative art. That is a whole other wonderful topic which hopefully Owen will write about soon -- term 3 has many school-wide arts activities.

At home it's still ART (as opposed to artWORK) -- creative, messy and experimental. The combination of school/home art theory is finally 'working' and while I see the value of children being able to manipulate different materials and learn the skills they teach at school - there is some value to simply doing as you are told (isn't there?).....I know that very few of the children get to do art which is truly creative and experimental -- painting on the walls, sewing snakes from fabric scraps (stuffed with beans that we hope don't sprout or attract unwanted houseguests!), drawing shapes and colors that are whatever you care to draw.

There are many studies about how a child's art progresses -- a face with eyes and a mouth, then stick arms and legs coming out of the circle head, then a body, then hands then hands with 100 fingers (eventually pared down to 5), etc. Finny's art of people is still at the very early stages but when he does creative work the stuff he produces is to my mind-boggling. He makes complicated pictures of airplanes as viewed from above with clouds and contrails and all the wings in the 'proper' places, he draws blind blue cheetahs, and paints owen swimming underwater, it's quite amazing and quite different from anything I've ever see! His personal artwork is definitely quite different from what I would ever 'tell' him to draw or 'help' him to make. He always disappears and does this work on his own....only showing us when he's done.

The photos above are (1) a drawing he did which he actually put together as kind of a paper quilt -- this is just one 'panel'. The drawings in the quilt are all orange and all geometric sketches with a circle in the center of the page and different configurations of lines and triangles connected to it. There was a story behind it but I neglected to write it down and now he won't tell me. That is another funny thing -- he does not like to keep his stuff around and frequently will not 'let' me put something up on the wall he does not like - even if I love it! He also deletes most of the photos he takes. What does THAT mean? Is it zen or psychotic? Let's go with zen. I try to take photos of his artwork just in case it doesn't meet his standards and it disappears into the rubbish bin before I can tuck it away in the kids' giant keepsake-box.

The lego project is ongoing and one he came up with totally on his own -- he makes models of different things, lately rooms of our house. This is the dining room. The first one of the series was of our living room: complete with 2 couches, 1 red chair, walls, chimney and.... one little black lego sitting loose--the 'projector' which we use to watch movies sometimes.

Mommy bias shining through of course, but isn't he just too much?