At some point in life, all the little things become up for critique and are judged for deeper meaning, professionalism, and perfection — whether those judgements are pushed by our supervisors, professors, parents, clients, or our own selves. When was the last time you could create something without having it be graded or judged by some criterion besides just being what it is? At some point in our lives, there becomes fewer and fewer spaces available to our busy schedules and energy scarcity that allows, let alone encourages, us to be the creatives we are outside of the classroom or workplace. The expectation of upholding “professionalism” in higher education spaces often deters students from using art and story telling to not only express ourselves, but that legitimizes creativity as a conduit for empowerment and action towards making change and impacting our communities.
“Little kids are masters of the moment—they love the way it feels when they smear paint on paper, how it looks when they sprinkle glitter, and even the soft sound a brush makes as it crosses the page,” says Amy Yang, founder of Brooklyn Design Lab, an art school for children. Unlike like adults, children care much less about what other people think about their creations or are much less self-conscious about creating a “finished product.” But soon, pressure and competitiveness takes over. Therefore, it is so important to allow, and more importantly encourage, children just to be in the moment and express themselves. There are several developmental benefits that art brings as well, including faster motor skills, visual learning, and inventiveness. Even skills like language development, decision making, and cultural awareness have been tied to engaging in art from a young age. There’s no question that art is an important part of children’s development — but not all children have the opportunities or resources for these engagements. It’s not new news that poorer neighborhoods have lower-funded schools which means a lot of things like old infrastructure, bad air and water quality, large classroom sizes, limited school curricula and materials, lacking administrative support and the list goes on. How can community based organizations work with local schools to bring children more access and exposure to creativity (because we know the government or its agencies won’t redistribute money where it needs to go)?
I work for a local non-profit called A Book A Day that primarily works with Penn Alexander and Charles Lea School in West Philadelphia. We do a lot of things, mainly curate and donate newly published books for the public school libraries each month, but we also establish relationships with children’s book authors, illustrators, and publishers so they can come to the schools and make connections with the children themselves. We also started doing writing and art competitions and other interaction programming like summer scavenger hunts for books to increase children’s awareness, literacy, self-efficacy, and overall enjoyment of being creative and thinking outside the box. One of our upcoming projects is working with Mathew Burgess and Josh Cochran for their PUMP project to come to the Lea School and paint a mural on a side of the school where children will be inspired by the art created for them to write poems about what they see in the art and the world around them. They’re joining us in May, so if you get a chance, drop by the Lea School and see the mural yourself 🙂 Maybe even send the ABAD team your own poem!
With that, don’t forget to submit something for the “I Am” Collective, in collaboration with A Book A Day and the Penn LGBT Center. Share your art and your story!