Art Everyday

Twenty years ago, when I ran a creative nursery school in New York City, the 3 and 4 year olds in my charge and I created art every day. Every day we painted pictures, drew portraits, glued shapes and textures on paper for collages, molded clay into animals, folded paper airplanes, mixed flour, salt and water together for play dough and strung macaroni on yarn for jewelry. We created art every day without hesitation, because it was fun and we loved it. 

 

Sometimes, a mom or a dad would sit down on a child sized chair and join us in colouring a picture or playing with modelling clay or pasting a few links of a paper chain together before saying good-bye to their child. They would tell me that they enjoyed playing art again. It is so satisfying creating art for fun. 

 

I wonder why we stop? Why don’t we play with art everyday like when we were little? 

 

Each week when I draw pictures with the children during the Story Club, I really enjoy the physical activity of making art again for fun. I can get lost in colouring all the leaves on a tree or drawing an outline of a chicken. Art is fun and it feels good. 

 

I think I’ll start playing with art again every day.