Painting the Train Room in Ann Arbor
I just finished an article about children’s art and how it’s important to let children freely express themselves. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to art I’ve made a few blunders with my own children and with children I’ve taught. It’s just way too easy to judge art by saying something like, “Don’t you want to add just a tiny bit of yellow or red to your picture?” You’re subtle, but what you mean is, “Yikes, your picture is black, totally black. Add some color!”
I do have a couple of moments I’m proud of. When my son, Brent, was six-years-old he had a “train room” in the basement of our house. That’s where he watched his little train go around and around the track, go through the railroad crossing, dump some logs, and continue on it’s journey.
But the train room was ugly. A bare light bulb with a pull string dangled from the ceiling. The walls were made of cinder blocks painted white. I (actually, this idea sounds like it came from a kid, so it was probably we) had the bright idea of letting the neighborhood children come over and paint a picture on a few cinder blocks. So we did. I put sandwich bags on their feet, a plastic bag for a smock over their bodies, provided paint and brushes, gave them their assigned squares to paint and sat back and watched. It worked! We ended up with clouds, big fat birds that looked like airplanes, houses with smoke coming out of chimneys, trees, hearts, and stick figure families. The train room was transformed from ugly to cheerful and it provided many happy hours for the kids. It was hard to leave that house in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a number of reasons but mostly because of the masterpiece painted on the walls of the train room.