art, Art, ART!

I recently read a little gem of an editorial in Time Out New York KIDS. I SO wish it had been me to write it. I will quote my fave parts below:

OUT THERE
Out take
By Christopher Healy:

"Dear teacher: Destroy my child's artwork. This is an open letter to all New York City preschool and kindergarten teachers. On behalf of crayon-weary parents in all five boroughs, I impore you: Stop sending our children's art home. Not all of it, of course--when my four-year-old daughter, Bryn, draws a portrait of our family as giant-eared, skinny-legged Muppet people, that sketch is earmakred for posterity. But do I really need to receive every scrap of paper on which she's placed a haphazard marker scribble or a random splotch of paint?"

He goes on to describe some hilarious examples of his daughter's "art"work including a giraffe riding a unicorn and a piece of yellow cardboard with EEDEAEO written on it with yellow crayon.

"You are our only hope. Please do some editing back in the classroom--perhaps while the unsuspecting artists are napping--and spare us the guilt and turmoil that comes with having to dispose of our own child's artwork. If you don't, we'll be sure to send you a nice homemade greeting card for every holiday on the school calender. And we won't be stingy with the glitter..."

THANK YOU Christopher for this hilarious letter and telling the world how I feel. I am anxious to read your book.

Seriously though, what do you do with the art? I have shared one solution that was recently taken away from us because of a nice new paint job in the stairwell of my apartment building, but I have some new ideas to share.

Kid's art poster. I LOVE this idea, especially if your child is really into art, and identifies with being an artist. I especially like the posters that have multiple works of art on them.

Flipbook. Everytime a piece of my child's art really spoke to me, I took a photo of it with my digital camera. Then at the end of the year, I collected them all into an online photo sharing site...my favorite is snapfish, but there are a lot out there, and then made a flipbook. Now she has a little book that she can flip through and see all of her creations in a clean, organized 4 x 6 size.

This also makes a great gift for grandparents, and is a nice little book you can throw in the Keepsake Box for when she gets older.

You could also save all the smaller art projects up throughout the year, and use them to make customized Christmas cards, by cutting them up. This might be hard to explain to some children, but others might really get a kick out of it.

I am sure there are many other fabulous ideas, but these are the favorite of a mom with a refrigerator that is not magnetic (stainless steel), walls that were recently painted, and no room for storage of ALL those art projects.