If you know anything about childrens art, you know that before, say, age 6, children develop a personal schema, a vocabulary of subjects that define and express their world. Scribbles gradually turn into shapes. Random circles become spidery suns, faces and flowers. Images emerge. In time, animals and people acquire legs, arms, even fingers. This haunting, pre-rational, so-called primitive vocabulary stands alone for a short while. Then, at some point, single-standing emblems evolve to form a picture of a the childs world.
Long ago, when I asked my 5-year-old son what he was painting, he said, The whole world. And he was. He was expressing his inner experience of home, neighborhood and school. But a globular globe crammed with images looked different than his other pictures. It was suspended on the page, somewhat like the astonishing photos we were seeing at the time taken by astronauts from space.
The image of our shining, blue planet suspended in a dark sky stirred us all. And my son quietly internalized this new Earth image as his. He filled his planet Earth with a childs house, trees, parents, neighbor kids, cats, Matchbox Cars and a boy playing with Legos. Im painting the world. Indeed.
J. Reynolds
