Saturday was Hova’s birthday, and along with a rare, yummy breakfast out and some skee ball at our local nickel arcade, the birthday agenda included a visit to Store for a Month [1]. Local artists rented a storefront to display inexpensive art, and to house an active studio for the resident artists to work on their various pieces.  

While we were getting ready to go, Georgia demonstrated her usual 4 o'clock grumpy disposition and declared, “I don’t like to go SEE art — I only like to DO art.” Hova reminded her that it was his birthday and he got to choose the activity, so she reluctantly huffed into the car. (We should have taken the bus but we weren’t feeling virtuous enough to schlep a 4 o'clock grump on a 20-minute bus ride that took five minutes to drive.)

What a nice surprise it was that it happened to be kid day at Store for a Month, where a terrific artist was helping kids use all sorts of cool junk to make wonderful things. Her name was Blair, and I’m pretty sure she is the same Blair who did the collages that Hova and I liked. She asked Georgia’s name, and then led her through all the materials, and made suggestions about how materials might be used while Hova and I got to gander at the goofy art offerings. I’m not sure this was the best work of all of the artists, some of it felt a bit shoddy and tossed together, and maybe that was the point, but it was fun and irreverent, and though I didn’t feel inspired to buy any of the cheap art, even five hand-painted push pins for $1, I felt inspired to DO art.

And Georgia was going at it! She had wire and cotton tubing, painted corrugated cardboard tiles, blobs of painted expanding-foam insulation, pom poms and paper all tied, taped and glued together into a tottering tower of creativity. Hova found a beautiful old photo of gingerbread men and deftly tore the edges and glued it onto a red painted tile. It was simple and terrific. Georgia decided her unwieldy sculpture was finished and decided to move on to painting. She dashed it out with panache and then got caught up in the headband making that Blair was leading. Using some long plastic grasses, wire, a pom pom and rope, Georgia fashioned not a headband, but an abstract kitten mask, which was a hit with the artist-types.

Hova looked at his gingerbread picture with pride. “I realize I’m good at this, I just never do it.” Who just sets aside time to create, for the fun of it, without a specific project in mind? Only kids and artists, and only until kids start feeling the pressure to create something useful and practical. For kids it’s the process, and if something amazing comes out of it, that’s a bonus. I keep stuff, never knowing what to do with the growing piles of non-recyclables, pretty, impractical jars, old keys, broken beautiful things.

The convergence of Store for a Month, Hova’s revelation, my compulsion and Georgia’s “I don’t like to go SEE art — I only like to DO art” declaration created a terrific family fun idea. We have Family Movie Night, Family Game Night, and now we’re going to have reduce/reuse/recycle/really fun Family Scrap Night. We’ll spread the newspaper and get out the materials, the glue gun, paints, and scraps of saved things and create whatever we feel like creating. Maybe it will be collaborative, or maybe we’ll each do our own, but we’ll have permission to use our time to be creative, messy and irreverent of “art.” We’ll tap into our inner children and not worry about if the finished product is useable or practical or even display-worthy. I’ve got it scheduled for June 28, I’ll let you know how it goes!