What Pure Madness!
I once volunteered for an afterschool art club at the school my kids attended. And one thing I learned is that until kids hit first or second grade there is an elemental, primal, un-selfconscious quality to their art which adult artists struggle to recapture.
Color is color, poured and slapped and slathered on, thicker and thicker. Kids focus on the elements of a face or body that they care about, never mind what else supposedly ought to be there.
Keep your eyes open and you can see some of that purity and intensity.
Sidewalk Art
These first two photos are of a drawing which remind me of the art my daughter used to make. Certain things mattered — the smile, the hair, the eyes — and beyond that, it just didn’t matter. Perspective, shading, proportion, they were as irrelevant as worrying about drawing the dog the subject might have left at home ten miles away.
What are those things above the right shoulders of these people? Does it matter? They were just worth drawing.
Here is a drawing that makes no sense to an outside adult, but to the kids who made it, there is a straightforward urgency — faces, names, arrows, hearts. What matters is is what matters.
Abstract Art
Kids of course lack the hangups of reactionaries as far as abstract art. For instance, these paper snowflakes barely resemble actual snowflakes, but kids love cutting paper and seeing what unfolds.
And next to a container of chalk someone left in a park, these drawings are a mix of barely representational and flat out abstract art.
Mystery Art
And finally here is something mysterious. In a clearing in woods near my house kids regularly make these structures. Hopefully they don’t have some kind of Wicker Man / Blair Witch purpose. I’ve spotted kids at work making them, and the structures regularly change. I’m sure it’s just fun with no special significance, but it’s fun to speculate.
…those seem a bit more advanced than just cairns…& cairns usually mark something anway, rather than sitting on a plinth like that
…I know there’s at least one strand of buddhism that I think has a deal with stacking stones as part of a prayer where each stone represents someone particular the prayer is for/about (not sure if prayer is exactly the term but I think I’ve got the gist of that right)
…but if it’s just a kind of outdoor art activity it seems like someone might have smuggled in some zen since I think in that tradition stacking/balancing rocks in a state of equilibrium is a recognized method of meditation?
I’m not sure what’s going on. I’ve seen kids building sort of lean tos out of sticks too, so maybe go in the park and build stuff is just part of the neighborhood fabric.
…so the lean-to thing may be (…I mean it could be something else entirely & I remember building tree-houses & forts in the woods without this…but I know someone who teaches at one so they’re definitely a thing) a “forest-school” activity?
…they’re kind of cool…not least the ones that do that sort of thing in parks in urban settings where kids might otherwise never get to do that sort of messing about…& with the less small kids they cover stuff like building fires along with other bits & pieces that might be helpful if you were lost in the outdoors…plants & what they look like & why mushrooms might be toadstools or berries not be for eating & what-have-you
…I’ll have to ask my friend if they ever do zen rock balancing, though…because that’s pretty cool & I didn’t think it was part of their…I guess it’s still a curriculum?
I’ve seen kids building little lean-to like things in the woods here too. They’re too small for the children themselves to fit in, and too large for fairy houses. I’m not sure what if any significance they have. Maybe just some sort of instinctive nesting?
I can only think it’s like building sandcastles or snowmen, it’s just fun to make stuff and see if it stands up or crashes down.
I think there is a grove of young Druids in your town (that’s what a group of Druids is referred to as, a grove) and this is their Stonehenge. They’re still fussing with it because they’re not yet quite satisfied.
The Hindus use Shiva lingam standing stones for various prayers, pouring milk, or honey, or yogurt over the stone.
I love it all!