My guess, we're all hard-wired to be creative.
I don't mean we all have the latent capacity to be the next Picasso or Haydn... rather a biological need to balance our brain. And creativity is the portal.
I've been an artist all my ife. Besides my freelance projects I spent years teaching art history and graphic design to middle-graders.
To my astonishment, I noticed there seems to be a symbiotic relationship between forms of art and the activities of kids. Take, for example, the fact that Lynn Swann studied ballet as a kid. Surprised? Well, to see him on the football field should leave no doubt...balance, rhythm, leaping, timing. I noticed that students of mine who were Little League baseball pitchers were most often predisposed to be artistic. Kinda makes sense. A pitcher must develop awareness of perspective and the relationship of objects in space, not to mention cadence and timing (so valuable to musicians and dancers).
These are just observations. But in this digital world where we seem to be straining the right side of our brains to the max I wonder about the left side, the creative side. The benefits may be subtle but who knows how many Lynn Swanns there may have been had a kid gone to ballet classes?
Just some brainfood to munch on.
Suggestions:
Check out your local museums for children's art tours and weekend art programs just for kids. Also, your community college may offer summer art and crafts classes for kids. Your local library often offers art activities for kids and art fairs are great fun.
Patricia Gresham is a free-lance commercial artist and graphic designer, author
and educator, wife, mother and grandmother. She is currently the publisher of
the family website DoodleDuds Depot
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