The Craft Table
March 16th, 2009 by Wendy - Guest Writer
When my children were growing up, they had a craft table — a place abundantly supplied with paints, paper, paste, scissors, glitter, craft sticks, rubber stamps, inkpads, and whatever else their little creative minds construed as art supplies. Many a ziti necklace was created, each noodle carefully painted a different color. Cheerios were a big favorite, both as a snack and an art element. Gluing Cheerios to construction paper was something even a 3-year-old could delight in. It never occurred to me that it could be dangerous until the day my 3-year-old rushed into the kitchen waving her latest creation.
“Mommy, lookit. I made it the self!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed with delight. Or so I thought.
Admittedly the Cheerios were very artistically placed, and I praised her efforts while noting that she seemed to be covered in glue. Then I noticed her pulling at her eyes.
“Mommy, my eyes is stuck.”
Sure enough, she had rubbed her eyes while gluing and then apparently had worked so intently on her project that she had managed to glue her eyelids open. She couldn’t blink! Fortunately, she didn’t seem deeply upset while I frantically scrambled, wondering what to do. A warm, wet washcloth and a little pressure soon had her eyes back to normal, but I reconsidered letting the 3-year-old have the glue and replaced it with school paste, which I considered more benign. She scampered off to create another masterpiece.
When you have young children, they want to do everything you do, and with my widely varying interests, I’ll bet I have the only children in town who learned how to spin wool with a drop spindle, knit, sew, and make pysanky eggs before they were 6. Their abilities varied widely and only one of them continuously builds on those precise early skills. My middle daughter has far surpassed my abilities in everything I taught her, and it is with great delight that I watch her make her own clothes and tackle quilting projects I wouldn’t even dream of attempting. The other two have gone off in their own creative directions. One is a talented artist and the other an amazingly creative thinker. I like to think it all began at that craft table with the glue and the Cheerios.
I was reminded of all this yesterday when I stopped in to visit a family with 5 small children who are very dear to me. I showed up with craft sticks and soon 3 of them and I were completely absorbed in our craft projects. Their wise and wonderful parents have already provided them with a craft table, which all of them use daily. Even the 2-year-old can be found sitting there intently coloring. This was their first encounter with craft sticks, however, and they loved it. By the time I left, there were 3 major projects well underway, and I am sure that by today, they have run out of glue!
While reading, writing, and arithmetic are extremely important, so is nurturing the creative spirit of children. Just as writing is a form of expression, so is art. We are all born with creative potential, and I would encourage parents to give their children a space where they can follow their artistic dreams. Many children struggle with their academics, but find themselves in creativity. It’s extremely important to allow creativity to be something in which children feel powerful and “smart.” We all need to know we are good at something, and the earlier you feel pride in your ability, the earlier you gain the confidence to tackle the other “stuff.”
The craft table was the place where this creative spirit was born and encouraged, and I feel strongly that it gave my children a powerful sense of self early in their lives. Personally, I love a creative mess and have always given myself space for that aspect of my life, and so I gave it to my children as well. While we aren’t the neatest people on the planet, we all love to “make stuff.” I’d rather have my child making a mess glued to an art project than glued to the television. I’m sure you would, too.
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Wendy Herrmann-Tross, Chinaberry Blog Guest Writer, is the proud mother of 4 wonderful daughters and 4 precious grandsons. (“Boys really are different from girls…now I know!”) She had a weekly column called “A View From The Porch” in 2 local papers for 3 years when she lived in New York, where she became a devoted Chinaberry customer back in the 80’s. She has since moved to Asheville, North Carolina where she is enjoying the beautiful mountains and her grandsons.
Tags: art, craft, creativity, humor, prioritizing
