May 16 // Enjoying Good Art Together

where creativity, awe, and with-ness meet

Hello! This month we’re talking about creativity, and if you’re new here, you can start here or check out the archives. Our big goal of the month is to spend a little time each day (or even just once a week) being creative together as a family. The multi-sensory experience of making beautiful things together can give life to the mind, body, and soul, and be like superglue for your family. Here are some open-ended prompts for each day of this week ⬇️

Enjoying Good Art Together

Another multi-sensory way to connect with your kids is through appreciating art together. This Friday we’ll share tips for going to art museums together—and how to get into museums for free—but first let’s just talk about why appreciating good art in everyday life is so powerful.

The incredible thing about good stories, music, paintings, poetry, meals, and, yes, even movies/TV is that enjoying them with your loved ones can fill you with awe together, without a plane ticket to the Great Pyramids or a long road trip to the Grand Canyon.

Your kids want to see you in awe. They want to see you inspired, they want to see you trying new things, and they want to see you unafraid of failure.

• If you can only draw stick figures, but you study a bit to learn how to make better stick figures (or super-simple characters like this), your kids will see in you the confidence that comes from getting better at something!

• If you try to cook new things and your chicken biryani tastes like toothpaste because you went overboard with the mint flavors, guess what? You just made a fun memory 😅 Even if that dish wasn’t a gift to your family, modeling how to laugh at yourself and keep trying is a gift to them.

• If you cry during a really good movie, you are showing your kids that well-told stories make you feel. Another person’s creative efforts can stir hearts to greater compassion—good art can change a whole culture! (Makoto Fujimura wrote about this in Culture Care.)

Creativity is contagious. If you want to become more creative, put creative things in front of your eyeballs. Don’t underestimate the power of inspiration.

• If you and your kids want to learn to elevate your cooking game, invest in a good meal and discuss what the chefs might’ve done to make that food taste, look, and smell like that. (You could also watch the Epicurious “4 Levels” videos together. It’s very interesting to see how a chef makes super-fancy food and what the science is behind it.)

• If you want your kids to feel inspired, go to the library and look for beautiful picture books. Some of our favorite illustrators: The Fan Brothers, David Wiesner, Lorena Alvarez, Sophia Blackall, and Tomie DePaola. (My friend Sarah gives book suggestions aplenty on Can We Read.)

• If you want to learn how to watercolor, draw, write in calligraphy, etc., look up art you like and try to copy it. You’ll grow so much by practicing like that. You’re not selling it or taking credit for the artist’s work; it’s not plagiarism. Every artist learns from other artists, and you’ll figure out your own style in time.

Parenting Hack: “Is this good art?”

As parents, most of us find ourselves sometimes relying on TV/iPads to keep our kids quiet and busy. We need to be cautious with screen time, but it can also have a very meaningful place in your home. If you want to feel better about the screen time your kids are getting, ask yourself this: “what is this doing for my kids?” Another question you can ask: “is this good art?”

C.S. Lewis once said “A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.” If you’re not enjoying what your kids are watching, maybe it’s just not good.

Lots of Youtube channels tack on the label “educational” but they’re not really nourishing your kids in any real way. And some videos might not be labeled for kids, but they’re quite inspiring creatively, like many of OK Go’s music videos. (You can’t just let your kids run free on the internet if they’re watching grownup music videos, of course.)

When you are enjoying art together, there’s more that you can show your kids. Made-for-kids TV might be “safe” but that doesn’t mean it’s good for your kids. You can use sites like Common Sense Media to see what specific objectionable content you might find in a film or book. When reading books aloud, you can soften harsh words and make scary moments a little gentler. There’s no pressure to get your kids into mature entertainment, but this is your invitation: enjoy good art togther.

From Our Hearts

May your heart be filled with awe this week…and may your kids notice it.

May you and your children find the bravery to try new things, even if you’re not very good at them.

May you find art, people, and things in nature that inspire you and help you create.

May the things you make shape your culture for the better.

I am praying these things for you!

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts