Sometimes mind-blinding explosions of lucidity can hit you from the most unlikely places. Like today’s Japan Times for example. This is not a publication where you normally will find examples of amazing journalism or photography. However, in it’s Art section this morning, I read an interview with painter Robert Ryman with the headline, “The message of the painting is the painting.”
In it he says:
“The painting is not a matter of giving a literal message. It doesn’t matter what is painted, because if there’s a painting of a nude, a woman or of a landscape, thats’s not what the painting is about. The message of the painting is the painting.”
This also works if you switch “Painting” to “Photograph”.
“A painting does’nt just come from nowhere. It hink there is a certain amount of connoisseurship that needs to be done because you have to know what painters have done, and how the approach has been, and you have to understand that painting is about painting. There may be other things, some kind of narrative that might be in certain paintings, but basically, all painting is about painting.”
It sounds simple, but it is not. I am just getting started.
I go to a small local art studio to paint on Wednesday nights. Iro Iro Batake. The art teacher at the kindergarten that is part of my school owns and runs the place. We are good friends. There are many small children who come to paint and make art at the studio. There have been instances where the kids want to sit on my lap while I paint, which is something that never happened when I studied painting at the university.
たいせつなひとこと => 安心して描けるやさしい目で、見守ってあげてください。
さあ、今。
お子さんが きりんさんを描いています。ちょっと想像してみてください。
① 絵本をいつも見ているのでよく知ってるよ。色は黄色で首は長く、茶色の模様で細い足がかっこいい、描けたあー。
②よくわかんないけど目がとってもかわいかったの・・・、と目だけ描いた。
③背がたかくて上まで見なかったので、足ばかり見ていて、足だけ描いた。
④じょうずな形を知っているので、うまくかけなくて困ってしまった。涙がでてしまって、どうしても描けない。
でも終わりになる前にちいさな点がひとつ描けたんだ。
⑤なぜか楽しかったから、クレパスでいっぱい 「ぐーるぐーる…」 たのしく遊んだ。
お母さんは、ウチの子は上手に描いてほしいと思い、「こうよ」と声に出したいのをおさえて……。
それでもやっぱり①をかいて欲しい…と見守っていることでしょう。
大人は「絵」を特別なものに考えているようです。「これが良い絵」という先入観を子どもにもたせると、子どもは絵の心をひらけなくなってしまいます。②も③も④も⑤も、そこにはお子さんの言いたいことがいっぱい詰まっています。そして、それぞれひとりひとりの表現ができています。
一緒にお子さんの世界をのぞいてみましょう。
Important => Please watch your children with gentle eyes so they can draw at ease.
Now, please imagine that your child has draw a giraffe. Which of the five instances below would occur.
<1> “I know giraffe well. It’s on my favorite picture book. So, I drew a cool animal with a long neck, yellow body with brown spots and long-slim legs.”
<2> “I’m not so sure about the whole animal, but I remember it has very cute eyes. So, I drew only eyes.”
<3> “The giraffe was so tall and I couldn’t see all the way up to the top. All I saw was its legs. So, I drew only legs.”
<4> “I know how it should be drawn. but I couldn’t draw it well. I was sad. I couldn’t hold back my tears. I tried and tried but couldn’t draw. But just before end of the time I could finally draw a small dot.”
<5> “I didn’t know why, but it was really fun. So, I played and scribbled with pastel crayons.
Mothers strongly feel the urge to help their children become great artists and would probably wish for results like <1> above. It seems that most adults have preconceived ideas about artistic creativity and although parents would prefer results like <1>, it’s important to have an accepting attitude of your child’s attempt at creativity. Expressing a prejudice of “good vs, bad” to your child’s creations hinders an “open drawing mind.” All five instances above are acceptable examples of creative expression of what a child wants to say.
