Simple Things, Art Talk and Synchronicity

Riley loves simple things. He still loves the empty boxes things come in more than what was inside. He loves making art side-by-side with me. In the studio everything is raw material, what would normally be thrown away is treasured, unleashed potential screaming. The other day he oohed and aahed over some papers I had used as masks for spray ink:

I love how he makes me see the beauty in things like this, all through our day.

Last year I signed up for Creative Every Day, the concept being that you do something creative every day, whether it is creating visual art or singing a song or doing a little dance - totally open to interpretation but it is more about the conscious act of doing it. This year I didn't sign up for it partly because last year it stressed me out some days, I made myself feel inadequate or like a failure because some days I just couldn't pull it up or even see that I was already doing it in simple gestures. But another reason is that before Christmas Riley started asking me to put a (daily) surprise in his lunch box. He wanted a little art-love note to find at lunch time. I started slowly, again feeling a little stressed to find something original to make squeezed into what little time there is between his bed time and mine. But little by little I relaxed about it and I've started to enjoy this kind of creative every day exercise. I guess I get weekends off (and ped days and March break). Sometimes he makes one for me and sneaks it into my lunch box. In a strange act of synchronicity that had me howling when I opened my sandwich one day, the night before we had each secretly made our art-love notes for each other, neither of us seeing what the other was doing. Mine for him was a little strip of paper folded accordion style counting down the ten days left to his birthday:

His to me was a little strip of paper folded accordion style too:

Now that March break is over, I'll be back making my daily specials.