Children A Inspiration

    &nbs This Easter I spent time at my brother's home. I had my i phone out torturing all as usual and  my sources of inspiration were my nephews. I had just added a new app with bright pastel filters and my oldest nephew engrossed in flying his planes in a video game was the first one I focused upon.  I began taking selfies with him in all different filters. He hardly noticed me which made the myriad of pictures I took that much easier. There was no posing or goofy faces just who he was at that moment. He is at that stage of pensive hormones of puberty flooding his body so he is beginning to change. I took pictures of our faces together. I normally dislike my picture being taken but these pictures because of my love of my nephews were at the least acceptable. My younger nephew was engaged in the the process of picture taking but with an annoyance of my constant clicking of the camera. I got a great one of him wearing a bunny mask looking very unhappy.

      I had longed for nieces or nephews for a long time and now have two nephews. I have loved children for they are genuine and a honor to be with. I'm not sure if it is from my own difficult childhood or if I have a gift in relating to them but in working with them over the years they bring much joy and happiness. The best job I ever had was working with children who were in a Residential Treatment Center for Emotional Handicap boys. Never was I so challenged and fulfilled. The talent I helped to mentor in the art and writing of these children was breath taking.

       I am an advocate of the protection of children and in early interventions to assist in helping them find their challenges and strengths so they may growth into whom they are meant to be. So often people give up and pigeon hole others due to fear and hopelessness. I have watched parents discover their children having learning disabilities and seen them fight for the right to obtain assessments for them to help in learning what they need to in the ways their brains can process information. Too often education relies on only one dimensional forms of education excluding multiple ways to approach teaching. In this I believe art can assist in augmenting children and parents for in the creative there is a wide array of approaches to expression. In expression there is not a right way which allows freedom and no judgement. What is made is perfect in creating from within allows the process to lead to beauty. Beauty is subjective and goes beyond  what is wrong or right.