IT ALL STARTS WITH THE ART OF A CHILD

AN INSPIRATIONAL REMEMBRANCE AND REVERIE

Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash (Not actually a photo of grandaughter Willow. But the spirit is certainly there!)

AUTHOR-TURNED-FILMMAKING-GRANDPA’S NOTES: As Halloween at last draws truly near – and I’m distracted by both ongoing post-production and the formative stages of the NEXT film in line – it’s exciting to look back six years at a memory that still fills me with delight and insight. Which I happtastically share with you below!

I witnessed the glorious early stages of artistic focus and devotion today, when my four-year-old granddaughter Willow drew me a full-color spooky pumpkin, with pointy teeth. She drew a word balloon with four near-letters inside. I asked her what the pumpkin was saying. She said, emphatically, "WHY ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE?"

But then she decided to draw more pumpkins. (Her first pumpkin was really good.) And as she came back from the kitchen, where she'd grabbed more paper from the stash, her eyes went up, and a four-year-old thoughtfulness consumed her, and I could almost hear her thinking, "What pumpkin should I draw now?"

It was so beautiful, because I knew she was dreaming ahead, thinking about what she might make next. And then she sat down on the floor, with fierce and gleeful determination. And started to draw again.

The next two were crying Jack-O-Lanterns, with blue tears to define against the orangeness and green creases. She was very excited to show us. And we were very excited to see. SHE WAS REALLY GOING FOR IT. I'm not sure which one cried better. They were both pretty convincing.

She did a fourth, but her heart was no longer in it, and she didn't bother to show us. THE CROODS (great fucking movie, by the way) was on. So we laughed through that. A movie for kids about creativity. How we make things. How we learn. How we get out of the primitive cave of not-knowing into the wider world of "Oh, this is how it's done."

I gotta tell ya: I love the art of very young children. The skills aren't there yet, but the impulse is completely uninhibited. The joy of creation. The attempt to communicate something that wasn't there before, but that they just made. Going, "See?" Going, "See that? I just made something. I made something for you."

This is the heart of art, and communication at large. Wanting to give each other something that both says "This is ME!" and says, "I really want you to have this, because I love you. And just because."