LIVING WITH ART BLOG

Most Sunday afternoons you can find me in my Gallery, JRB Art at The Elms, in The Paseo Arts District. We are open on Sunday afternoons because it is a time that families can visit the Gallery together. Saturdays are usually dedicated to soccer, Little League, music or dance lessons, haircuts and buying tennis shoes. Being in the Gallery when children are looking at art is a remarkable experience.

The first time most children visit the Gallery, they either are very excited or are overwhelmed by the quality and variety of the art. Most of them have never seen that much art in one place.  After looking around for a few minutes, they will usually start talking with me about the work. For instance, if they spend time in front of a single painting, I will ask them what they see, and they will tell me. The artist Rae Baldridge often has faces, objects, and animals embedded in her abstract paintings. When asked, a child can identify more animals in a painting that I can.

Some children carefully study the colors. When looking at a Jim Keffer painting of a farmhouse with a red road leading to it, a boy excitedly told me that last week in school he had painted a red road. He then called his parents over to look at the red road and reminded them about his painting. Another time, a little girl whispered to me that she was going to go home and paint a sky with pink clouds like the painting she was inspecting by Pop Western artist, Jack Fowler.

Another child, when looking at a Karam painting asked how the artist got the paint so thick. When I explained that the artist put pigment and epoxy in a cake decorating tube and squeezed out the paint, both the child and the parents were astonished.

One Sunday afternoon, a couple visited the Gallery with a youngster in a stroller. They became instantly attracted to several paintings by Behnaz Sohrabian. They could not decide which one to buy until they noticed that the little guy in the stroller began to kick his feet and wave his arms when they repeatedly pushed him in front of a specific painting, which they then purchased.

For the last decade I have worked with a couple and their granddaughter in selecting a painting every year for the granddaughter’s birthday. What a lasting memory and a connection to art, as well as her grandparents, that young woman will have throughout her life.

Before a child leaves the gallery, I will ask a them to show me their favorite work of art and to tell me why it is their favorite. The answers I get are so creative. For some imagination is the connection, for others it is the subject matter, for others it is the emotion the artwork evokes, “It makes me happy.”

All these examples are a testament to the importance of arts in the development of children. If just visiting a gallery and looking at art for an hour or so can generate wonder, pride, compassion, confidence and curiosity, just think what a daily curriculum of art activities that are related to specific subject matter studies can accomplish.

Depending on their age, children usually understand that I did not paint all the paintings in our inventory. They get it that I just manage the Gallery and sell the art. Others continue to marvel that I have painted so many paintings and that they are all different. One day, a charming little girl called out to me, with her clear young voice, as she was leaving the Gallery, “Ma’am, you sure are a good artist.”

Image - Rea Baldride, "Libertarian Lawnmowing," Oil on Canvas, 36 x 40 in.