Thursday Artsday

One of the things I worry about as a mom is whether or not I'm adequately getting my kids through the times they're "going through something." Writing has always worked for me, but my kids can't quite write. They're five and not yet two. But I know art can be therapeutic in the same way, so I've upped the emphasis on it since our cross-country move, which has had my daughter missing her friends and favorite things to do "back home." 

Now, I'm creative, some even say stylish, and I love the arts like crazy; but I'm not crafty the way Pinterest has us believing that mothers in this day and age should be. I encourage my kids to use their imaginations through reading and storytelling, and imaginative play. Also, we would go to art museums regularly - or at the very least I'd invite my kids to join me when I'm looking through the art category on Pinterest. Alas, when I sit down with them to do guided art projects or crafts, I just about lose my mind. I think I'm probably, as my husband puts it, "a control freak, micro-manager, and perfectionist." But I'm also, ironically, a fuck up when it comes to following rules. So I can't watch my poor kids try and create something by the book for two reasons: 

1) I get very unfairly tense when they aren't doing something just so, and it isn't looking how it's "supposed to"

2) Fuck whoever said this craft is supposed to look like this

We used to subscribe to a craft box every month, for about a year, and it got to the point where I'd hide the box when it came in because I just couldn't take the emotional turmoil it caused me to actually engage in this type of activity with my daughter. The box mocked my fitness as a parent. So as far as "art" and the corresponding supplies go around here, my kids have crayons and some coloring books somewhere. At best we can find safety scissors and maybe a row of crusty little tubs of paint in a kitchen drawer. 

So I found this blog The Artful Parent through a Facebook ad, I think, awhile back before the move. I followed it as a kind of wishful thinking gesture, but saw an idea in the author's feed that, for some cosmic reason, just stayed with me: art journaling for kids. She and her kids actually made their art journals out of recycled material, which is a little too ambitious for me at the moment, but they were gorgeous and the spread of materials her kids have to work with was truly awe-inspiring and made me have a "duh" moment. 

I showed the post to my daughter the other day and she was giddily intrigued. So we headed to the sad, criminally overpriced local arts and craft store to pick up a "starter kit" of sorts to do our own art journals, then high-tailed it out of there, unfortunately, and went to KMart instead where the markers were only $3 instead of $9 (I'm what's wrong with this consumerist country).

Each kid got their own "journal," we came home, and they worked in 'em for hours. Instead of unconsciously trying to aspire to have them work on predetermined projects from a box or phone app, I told them just to do whatever.   

I even turned a journal of my own into an art journal instead, at my daughter's insistence. I was secretly wanting to do that anyway (well, maybe not so secretly - I think I tweeted about wanting to do it a few days ago), but notice I can't let go of the impulse to write something, anything, instead of just being strictly artly; it's an obsession and a compulsion).

 

My daughter gets bored of things easily. She's always looking for the next cool thing to do, or coming up with outrageous scenarios she wants manifested. But she has been coming back to this art journaling project multiple times a day for the past three or four days. It's a serious hit and I feel like this is a parenting win for me, which I really needed.