"Imagination is woven into the child's drawing. This reveals the close connection between the forces of memory and the child's own experiences. Imagination is born after the third year and from now on it adorns everything .... Soul experience now becomes pictorial presentation. Children's souls 'play' with what they have experienced and what they remember, and it is lifted up into their imagination." Children are natural creators, myth makers, capable of World Building and existing in that somewhere-realm between spheres of physical and spiritual. Sometimes the only "guidance" required is the space to move their bodies, the time to do so. Luxuries, really. Really. The most luxurious part being our own awareness, as adults, to grant this time and space. And to remember to do this for them: to let them just, be. When was the last time you were so lost in work, any work, and able to exist between the physical and spiritual? Was it this morning? A decade ago? Do you even remember the feeling: Time is gone. Form is gone. Logic is gone. And what one is left with is what some call freedom, some call bliss, some call nirvana. A stillness of the mind. Through creation. When did this concept become a luxury? And while it seems like everyone is searching for such a thing, and people want to sell you such a thing and entities want to help you attain such a thing ... really it could be society's act of de-valuing it in the first place that has placed such a high value on it now. It is the soul experience that makes us human. Children know this, without knowing. "The soul-spiritual nature of small children is primarily engaged in the process of bodily incarnation. They build the bridges of life between body and soul. In their diagrammatic pictures, that which is engaged in building the body rises to the surface of visibility. They are as it were, the sand washed up out of the ocean of organ-formation, out of the subjectless and objectless 'No-Man's-Land' of life processes." As adults, can we retrieve it? This mystery? As artists, this is the constant journey. The living question. The fierce will. The World Building. The space to move our bodies. The time to do so. The re-valuing. The soul experience.
9 Comments
1/4/2015 09:59:36 pm
Thank you for a meditative post. Its beautiful both the words and the weaving.
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1/7/2015 08:44:08 am
Thank you for your comments, Ladies. It was lovely to re-visit this project here and to remember the point of such things.
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1/8/2015 01:31:42 pm
pablo picasso told us, “every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up”. thank you for reminding us that the problem therein is in the "attempt" to stay an artist. that we rather simply need to "be an artist". to "allow" and "experience" like a child. awesome!
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1/9/2015 02:51:52 am
Montana Joe--that Picasso quote is one of my favorites. Thanks for sharing it here and thanks for reading!
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1/11/2015 02:38:23 am
Amy--I am delighted to "meet" you via homerSapiens. I just began a FT job with little ones 0-3. They live in a world of magic and wonder and have invited me in. My artist self is honored. I believe that even before age 3 they express and weave. Your work , family life, Alaskan experience and expressions are resonant and ring true for me. Quyana! Thank you
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11/1/2015 08:30:48 am
Ruthe,
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Oh .. lovely true words you have spoken here. I see this unrestrained freedom of expression and imagination when I place blank canvases and acrylic paint in front of my two younger grand children. They paint easily have stories to go with their pictures. The older seven year old is already unsure and wanting to please other's. It restricts her creativity. She wants be like others. This saddens me and I try my level best to assure her that there are no mistakes and that her work is beautiful because it's hers.
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11/3/2015 05:47:00 am
Tammy,
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Amy MeissnerArtist in Anchorage, Alaska, sometimes blogging about the collision of history, family & art, with the understanding that none exists without the other. Categories
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