Kid Prompts

Having had my annual physical on Thursday, I had planned to write a piece today about weight - how I wonder what life would be like if that number weren’t ever even measured. If I’d never stepped on a scale. I may still write it some day, but two things happened that became more important.

1. I met a really great 4 year old kid named Remy, and instead of the time I was going to spend writing, I sat outside of my local sandwich shop on a gorgeous breezy morning, getting to know Remy and his parents, Carmen and Ted, and discussing with Remy what we would fill our homes with if an entire 10 floor building was our “house.” Items included: a swimming pool, a movie theater, a jungle gym, and “11 chips.” Just 11.

2. My high school friend Sara sent me a drawing prompt from her 4 year old, Simon, and I spent the last hour or so drawing his idea.

Both of these things seemed so much more important than my endless middle-aged-lady musings on toxic body culture. For the moment at least.

I am also getting very artistically interested in drawing kids’ ideas, both because it’s fun, but also because there is something unique about the process. I am welcomed into the imagination of a child, ask them to linguistically process that idea, I receive that language, process it in MY imagination, and synthesize it. Every step of that sequence influences and changes what emerges. I haven’t figured out the academia of it yet, but I think maybe something very special is happening in that chain.

That said, if you have a kid who would like to share a drawing prompt with me, please reach out! For now, here are a few from the last few weeks, with their kid and their prompt listed in the caption.

Enjoy your Saturdays. Go hang with some kids’ imaginations.

Natalie, 9: “A very stretchy person surrounded by fruit that has swirls on it"

Natalie, 9: "A cat in a tuxedo with really long claws."

Simon, 4: “A robot house. Not a house for robots. It’s a house that folds up into a robot.”