#27: Draw with Kids
Get some markers and let go of expectations.
Instructions
Find some kids you can hang out with.
Get some easy materials like washable markers, paper, some snacks, and maybe some music.
Ask kids what they want to draw, or ask them to help you draw something. Let them lead as much as you can!
Give them things to color in, a part of the picture that they can work on, and then doodle.
Repeat as often as possible.
Remembering to Get Bored ...
Boredom is inherent in life—as is the unstoppable quest to avoid it at all costs (at least in my life). I get it! It’s fun to Have Projects and Do Things and whatnot. But the cycle of distraction and avoidance sets us (or, at least me) up for a grinding cycle of dissatisfaction. (Or, as my new favorite meditation teacher Tuere Sala exclaims, “Dukkha dukkha dukkha!”). But it’s not entirely our fault:
The remote control that boredom holds is your phone. Leave it behind, and sneak calmly out the back way. … The key is: sneak yourself out past boredom like it’s an awful foster parent... If it catches you sneaking out, boredom will try to talk you into taking your phone.
If you do, you’ll be taking boredom with you.— Lynda Barry, The Paris Review, September 21, 2017
Looking around us is an easy counterbalance, if (and once) we can get past the guilt of “ugh, I did it again! Damn you Tim Apple”. Enter: toddlers.
...And then Look with Curiosity
I recently got to spend some time with my niece and nephew, who are 1 and 5 years old—magical and utterly exhausting ages! They have yet to be grizzled by the world, and are utterly present to their emotions. Kids naturally have a Beginner’s Mind and curiosity about the world—in their non-tantrum moments. Or, as Sonya Renee Taylor discussed on a recent podcast:
“Radical self-love is our inherent sense of worthiness, enoughness, divinity. It is the source state in which we arrived. I like to think of it as the human operating system before anybody starts tinkering with it. Like, we came installed with radical self-love. We already were fully connected to our own divinity, fully connected to the divinity of others—like, we thought all humans were amazing, we thought the fact that we had feet were amazing. I say all the time that you’ve never seen a self-loathing toddler, there’s no toddler that’s like ‘oh, I just can’t stand these thighs.’ (laughs)”
This is easily seen in how toddlers navigate the world, which my niece and nephew reminded me of—my nephew being stunned by a paper cutout high-up on a window or the birds outside, or my niece being enchanted by the smell and sound of the world. As Jan Steward and Corita Kent instruct in their book:
“FIND A CHILD
If you have a child of two or three, or can borrow one, let her give you beginning lessons in looking. It takes just a few minutes. Ask the child to come from the front of the house to the back and closely observe her small journey. It will be full of pauses, circling, touching and picking up in order to smell, shake, taste, rub, and scrape. The child’s eyes won’t leave the ground, and every piece of paper, every scrap, every object along the path will be a new discovery.
It does not matter this this is all familiar territory—the small house, the same rug and chair. To the child, the journey of this particular day, with its special light and sound, has never been made before. So the child treats the situation with the open curiosity and attention that it deserves.
The child is quite right.”
– Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit, by Corita Kent and Jan Steward, pg. 14
Releasing Preciousness in Making
Most young kids create and make (and destroy!) without attachment to the end product. Of course, they will also FIGHT YOU if you try to get them to put on a hat when it's sunny or raining, so we can’t use them as guideposts for all of life.
But overall, art and making things is not (usually) a precious commodity to them (exceptions apply).
I had a great time coloring with my niece and nephew (all hail Crayola washable markers), especially when I’d ask my niece what shapes she wanted me to draw and then asked her to help draw them in. Once or twice she wanted to draw a self-portrait, which was glorious in that wonderful toddler odd, unfettered way (GIANT hands, BIG hair, triangle body!).
So if you can, hang out with some kids and make some low-stakes stuff with them.
And finally: Music!
As the new part of this newsletter, here’s the music that’s getting me through this time. This week I have an archived improvised jam with Flying Lotus, Reggie Watts, and Marc Rebillet (my pandemic obsession).
For a couple minute cool-down, scrub to 1:40:00 in https://youtu.be/0J8G9qNT7gQ?t=6031
If you want a more funky 10 minute weird song that devolves into singing about horchata and butts, 14 minutes, 8 seconds. I don’t think they get too R-rated but it’s definitely not PG in the entire program, so be aware if you’re, you know, making art with kids.
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