Lets Help Our Kids Stay Artists

I love it when parents bring their children into the Artists Market. I think it is great when they show them around and talk with them about the art, and especially when they ask the kids what they like.

When a young person is walking around in our gallery, I frequently ask them what kind of art they like to make and encourage them to keep doing it. Almost everyone I ask enjoys doing art, especially the young ones. Based on this careful research and years of data, I think most of us start out as artists and then lose it somewhere along the way. At some point someone told us to stay inside the lines or not to color on the table or some other DON'T.

While I was thinking about this today in the Market, a song came on and caught my attention. Doesn't it seem that when you are thinking about something with music playing, a song will come on that is in some way relevant to your musings? Today it was Katy by Tom Paxton. (At least he was singing it and I think he wrote it.) I wrote down some of the words:

Oh you might believe in miracles,
And you might believe in saints.
But you never believe my Katy
When she's playing with her paints.
For there is red upon the window
And there's green upon her face,
In her hair and in her eyes ...
But on the paper, not a trace.

I just smiled, enjoyed the moment and decided I had to share it with you.