One of the reasons...

One of the reasons I am passionate about art is that I have relatives on both sides of my family who studied art.  I cherish the few pictures I have that they did. Although they have been gone for many years, their art is a visible reminder of their lives and their contributions to the planet. The sketch that accompanies this blog was completed in 1918 by my maternal grandfather, Roy Jensen.  He died in 1935 when his car was stuck by a train. He was a United Methodist pastor and the father of three children, including my mom who was two years old when he died. Although my mother and the rest of us did not get to know this wonderful man, the drawings he did and the things he wrote are treasures that let us in on a little of who he was. 


Likewise, one can look back at the artwork of a child as the record of who they were when young, and the thinking and ideas expressed therein. Each of the students I work with changes and develops each day. The work they do today is different than that they will do next year, the next, and later in life. Their work is a creative effort, an example of who they are now, a footprint of sort of their time here today.  Each one is in the process of making sketchbooks for this school year, labeled with their name as they write it now, their preliminary sketches for their projects, their idea book and a reflection of their changing lives. I hope to have them write in their books about what they are thinking about their artwork.  I hope that at the school year's end these little books will become keepsakes for their families, a look back at who they are now.