Family Photo:
The Artists

"Mario Art" [picture from school chalk art festival]

On Tuesdays, Calvin has art class.

It's something new this year. The school just hired a new art teacher.

Every Tuesday, Calvin's class walks across the school to the art studio. Every Tuesday, the art teacher introduces them to a new artist—Warhol, Van Gogh, Picasso. Every Tuesday, Calvin runs to me after school to describe their latest art class adventure—tracing Campbell's soup cans, coloring sunflowers with oil pastels, pointing at empty circle-faces with closed eyes to choose where to fill in an ear, or a nose, or a mouth.

He comes home with little facts about artists: Did you know Pablo Picasso did his first painting when he was 8 and his last painting when he was 90? May we all aspire to an 82-year art-filled career.

"Do you know what you should do if other people don't like your art?" Calvin asks one Tuesday, as I buckle him into his car seat.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Just keep doing it!" Calvin says.

This triggers a surprisingly impassioned speech:

Your art is YOUR art. It's not for THEM; it's for YOU. So just keep doing it. And as you keep doing it, you'll get better at it. And then maybe the people who didn't like your art will start to like your art.

Did you know Vincent Van Gogh produced more than 2,000 artworks in his career? He didn't sell many paintings during his lifetime—some people think he only sold one. Sometimes people have trouble recognizing great art at first, so don't get discouraged if people don't recognize yours. They didn't recognize Van Gogh either.

Lawrence is also something of an artist.

"It's a Big Boy Train" [picture from school chalk art festival]

How do we encourage these young artists?

Luana bought them these big sketchbooks. It's so much fun to follow along as they fill their books with pictures and letters and words and stickers. Luana keeps them armed with endless buckets of pens and pencils and markers and scissors. They use so much printer paper and tape and glue and staples that my parents are running a miniature office supply store.

I love that. I love all of it.

Dad Jokes:
The Artist's Skin

Source: /r/madlads

Highlights:
The Artist's Way

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.

2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life-including ourselves.
3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator’s creativity within us and our lives.
4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.
5. Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.
6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction.
8. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.
9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.
10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity

I Write a Parenting Advice Column (or How I Became Famous in My Neighborhood) by Ted Gioia

[M]y wife and I did focus on creative and artistic activities for our children during their formative years. But these activities always had to be fun. We made music together as a family, relying heavily on the magical items contained in a large box of instruments (mainly percussion) that we kept near the piano....Later when they got involved in school music ensembles, and went off to competitions or auditions, my words of encouragement were always the same: “The goal isn’t perfection—the idea is to make music.”...That’s a healthy attitude. And not just for musicians.

Tim Urban on X

I met many aspiring artists in my early 20s. Observing their trajectories since then, I've learned that long-shot careers in the arts (famous singer, actor, songwriter, filmmaker, etc.) are long shots not because success relies on wild luck or rare genius or insane connections. Success stories pretty reliably happen for people who combine three not-that-remarkable things: solid talent, savvy business sense, 15-20 years of persistent hard work. It's just that most people only pull off one or two of those things and not all three.

Things You're Allowed to Do, Epicurean Edition by Sasha Chapin

Commission art from an artist you like