As an artist and a father, there is nothing more satisfying than watching my children create. They do so with such freedom, unencumbered by old habits, art history, or critiques. They are so proud of their artwork, each piece seemingly a new adventure and experiment in creativity.
Day after day, my wife and I find ourselves teaching them the lessons of life we hold so dear – to be kind and empathetic, bold and fearless. These teachable moments happen everywhere, but especially around the same table where their art is made, as we talk about the day that was.
As I was hanging some of their art on the refrigerator, admiring the differences between their work and my own, a moment of inspiration came to me. While many of their paintings are full of free flowing strokes of color, my own work centers around bold images with simple monotone backgrounds. What they are creating is what I feel like I’m missing from my own work. So what if I combined my art with theirs while also creating pieces of work to help teach the lessons we discuss day to day?
With their permission I created our first combined piece of art, The Golden Rule, and hung it prominently in our home. My wife and I found that we were pointing to the artwork every time we thought they could be treating each other nicer. Outside of the house, we found they were referring to the piece when talking to each other and to us. So we created a couple more, and those too were helpful in getting our lessons through. These images now hang around our house, and are a part of our daily conversations. The boys love talking about them, and we love reinforcing the messages.
And so my wife and I have a running list of lessons and a countless supply of their art to marry together to create new pieces of work to help them learn the lessons. These are creADDive lessons, by Maxwell, Zachary and Dad.
