Monday, January 3

Kids Renaissance: Week 1

It has turned into an annual event. Each year after Christmas, my husband and daughter take off to his parents place and momma gets some sweet, sweet alone time. And during that time (when I'm not deathly ill) a great purge takes place in our home.

For a family of three, we have far too much stuff and I'm sure this is an affliction that many of my fellow bloggers know too well. Most of the time the purge is fairly easy to execute but a wall is always hit when I get to my child's stuff. Sure it's easy to lob the Happy Meal toys and other trash treasures that will never be missed into the garbage bin but one thing I have a really hard time getting rid of is her art work.

The creative energy is strong with my five year old, I say. Always has been and hopefully always will be.
If we kept it all, we would have smothered to death under the weight of paper and be the focus of an upcoming A&E investigative special. But what should we do with the artwork we just can't toss? Currently all her extra special creations are filed away in a series of accordion folders which are only opened quickly once a week when her school file comes home, laden with more 'keepsakes'. But even those deemed special enough to keep are threatening to take over far too much precious shelf space. This begs the question: 

For my daughter's inevitable therapy sessions, how much of her artwork should I keep in order to avoid any future discussions with regards to how awful a parent I was by not cherishing all her creative endeavors?

Right after I asked myself that exact question last week, I came up with this idea: why not showcase it here? I know that almost every parent thinks their child is a talented and creative artist -- because despite what anyone else says: THEY ARE -- and why not share it with the world? Kids are incredibly creative and there is something very humbling about the simplicity of a child's perspective of their world.

So here it begins on the first Monday of 2011, a piece from my daughter's gallery entitled 'Butterfly'.

By Gigi, Age 5. Medium: Markers and Paper.

Please do the same at your blog, create a virtual corner for your child's artwork before it's tossed -- I mean filed away -- and share a link in the comments below. I promise I will drop by and tell you that you are also raising a member of the future renaissance, because you probably are.

Come on now, share. Make these blog posts a virtual fridge gallery for the world to enjoy.

7 comments:

Rusti said...

great idea :) I don't have much to share yet as Goose will be TWO on Thursday, and has only been in an organized daycare for a year (before that was an in-home horror story) but she does bring home the occasional piece of artwork :) if I get some scanned & posted I'll link back :)

another idea I learned from someone a while back (don't remember who, or when... probably a blogger - y'all are brilliant!) was to scan them in (as you've done) and create photobooks of them on Shutterfly/Snapfish/Kodak/whatever other company/site you use... think about it - a full size piece of artwork on a 8.5x11 glossy sheet of paper, two sided, 20 pages... that's 40ish pieces of artwork in a thin-bound-book... and what kid wouldn't love to see a "real book" of their artwork... am I right? (or technically, wasn't the originator of the idea, right?) it's something I think I'd like to do with E's artwork... now I just have to get the stuff scanned... ;)

thanks for offering space on your virtual fridge for kids' art!

Colleen @AMadisonMom said...

I scan all of the stuff into the computer. I have a plastic bin (think rubbermaid) for each girl and save the stuff I think is most special. I even scan in the preschool daily notes home... and the conference reports.

The idea of making a book out of it is great! If I ever find the time I might have to try that.

Oh... and Gigi truly is destined to be a member of the future renaissance. I especially love her sun!

Heather said...

I agree with the scanning.

Also books of artwork make great gifts for the grandparents.

Sweepstaker said...

Awww your daughter must be adorable. It's nice of you to show us your kid's work. I think I'll have to do the same for my kids artwork too. :)

Thanks for sharing.

Kyla said...

What a great idea!

MARY G said...

Brilliant! I have a series of folders with art work, clippings from newspapers and granduation programs. My daughters are 44 and 43 respectively. I have culled and culled again as they grew up but I still have a filing drawer full.
And all my grandmother's photographs and recipes. Another drawer.
Definitely scanning some of this, and archiving it. Dern, you're clever.

petite gourmand said...

excellent idea!

and you have quite the little artist.
nice.