On Christmas Eve I went to church with Paul’s family. In the row ahead of me was a little girl of about age three. She was obviously dressed in her Christmas finest; a little fur-ruffed red jacket, a matching dress with a little pocket in the skirt, white tights, and shiny little black shoes. Initially her father was holding her in his arms, facing me and back to the priest, and we played peek-a-boo around her dad’s shoulders. When she giggled a little too hard Daddy put her down and she played peek-a-boo through his legs for a while. Eventually the parents tired of this game and dug around in her little pink backpack for a few sheets of blank paper and a baggie full of crayons.

As I watched, she started by coloring a wide swath of purple across the page. She then added orange highlights, some green shading, and balls of pink scattered around the page but still connected by a thin trail. Each mark was made with deliberation rather than randomness. She knew exactly what she was creating and every stroke had to be just so. Occasionally she would pause, study her creation, point to various areas of the page as if counting up to make sure that she got all of the important parts in, and only then would she carefully select a new crayon and add some subtle stripes to one of the busier areas of the page.

Each time she paused to point and mutter to herself about the various portions of her art I was immediately tempted to ask her what she was drawing. With difficulty I managed to restrain myself. It occurred to me that perhaps she was not drawing anything in particular, but rather creating modern art or a symphony of colour on her scrap page. I didn’t want to fetter her creativity by requiring her to be drawing something specific just so that she could give some nosy adult a label.

She completed the drawing with a flourish and then curled the paper into a tube, crushed the centre of the tube, then curled out the upper edges like a flower. As I watched her switch shamelessly from painter to sculptor, I wondered at the impact of art classes on childhood creativity. This little girl knew nothing of the subtleties of art; she had never been exposed to paintings in museums or structure or perspective. She had never heard of Monet or Van Gogh, Picasso or Renoir. The only tools she had were her instincts and her own inner vision, and yet she was an artist (although probably with less angst than most artists).

I, myself, generally refrain from practicing “art”. My sixth grade art teacher told me that I “shouldn’t draw” because I wasn’t very good at it. While I realized that my line drawings weren’t as accomplished as those of my classmates, I was still willing to learn and thought that I had a lifetime of exploration ahead of me. I was heartbroken that I was actually so terrible at drawing that my teacher, who I respected and adored, had already given up on me. That day I stopped drawing: no doodling while on the phone, no playing pictionary, avoiding art classes and eliminating jobs which required drawing skills in my high school career search.

The little girl unfolded her work of art, flattened it slightly and tugged on her mommy’s sleeve. Mommy glanced down, smiled and whispered, “Very nice.” The little girl shrugged as if the praise didn’t matter, she had just wanted to share her creation with someone she loved, to add some beauty to her life and share her experience.

I wondered what the world would be like if everyone could create art like that little girl did, without worrying about judgment or whether the drawing looked true to life. What a difference it would make if every single person drew what they loved onto a scrap of paper, and someone else loved them enough to hang it on their fridge. What a sense of accomplishment to have your creation so appreciated. What a beautiful way to share love and creation.

As for myself, I restrict my attempts at art to amateur photography and scrapbooking, which no one seems to find offensive enough to openly scorn me for. I have to admit though, that I smile a little inside every time Paul comments on one of my “artsy shots”, since it means to me that someone loves me enough to put my drawings up on the refrigerator.