Arty Party

When the model is vertical, I feel the need to try horizontal

 

I know nothing about art. My work is very primitive. Yet, there is something very serene about messing about with paints. When there is no expectation of an end-product, I enjoy playing with canvas. Especially in the company of my Sunday School girls with a few yummy snacks around.

At home, we pulled out the coloring books. That's about as low-tech and uncool as it gets, but, to my surprise, the thirteen year olds were right there in the mix. We colored to classical music and drank cinnamon apple tea and I had to force them all to quit playing with the oil pastels and colored pencils and go to bed. Lovely. My mama heart was happy for a little evening of creativity with each kid absorbed in the process...and absolutely no arguing or temper tantrums about glitching computer programs.

My son was invited to a birthday party tonight where an 18 wheeler was outfitted to house multiple video game screens and invitees spent two solid hours of video combat. My fifth grader expressed some anxiety about the level of competition beforehand. "But mom, these kids play video games six hours a day!" This led to a great discussion of how we have other intentions for his childhood. He doesn't live under a rock. He regularly plays with some buds in the land of Redstone repeaters that can be set to a maximum of five ticks. But, we set limits and have goals other than filling our hours with electronic devices.

Minecraft is a foreign language to me. I don't know what stone pressure plates or sticky pistons are, but I do know that I want our children to spend time in the fresh air, playing music, reading good books, creating art, throwing a football, talking with neighbors, loving God, serving others, and interacting with the family that lives in their same house and not just battling some hacker from cyberspace. That's a battle I'm willing to take on day after day.