First
off, I want to give props to the lawyers who are reading this. Thank
you for not suing me. I HAVE NO MONEY. It’s not worth your
time.
 Now,
then. I spent New Years’ Eve 1999 in Manhattan, largely because
I always wanted to see New York, but mainly because the American
mass media was convinced (along with half the population) that the
world would come to a fiery end from God or the Martians or the
Y2K Bug or whoever was still pointing missiles at us. I figured
if all hell was going to break loose I should be in the middle of
the action. Why settle with watching the Apocalypse on TV? So I
got on a bus and left.
Needless
to say, the world didn’t end, which must have been a disappointment
to a few people (possibly including the small army of cops around
Times Square), but I still had a great time.
On
the bus back to Minneapolis, I whipped up a whole pile of drawings
out of a coloring book. The coloring book and box of crayons were
waay too expensive (around five bucks), and most of the crayons
were shades of green and red, but I was enjoying myself and entertaining
the four-year-old girl in the seat in front of me. When it was done,
I had scribbled together ten different drawings in my Curious George
book. Yeah, I know, it was a long trip.
I
put them away for a while and then came back a few months later.
I was joking about pushing these as “serious art”, but
I never took it seriously. It was just fun. But over time, I thought
about it and figured, hey, why not? This stuff is just as good as
anything else I’ve ever done; there’s a lot of skill
and thought put into these creations; they look good. Most importantly,
these were cheap to make, and I could sell them for a fairly low
price (don’t get me started on the prices of artwork). These
drawing are, well, Epicurean. (read your Greek philosophy for that
one) Who wouldn’t like that?
There’s
actually something about children’s’ coloring books
that I admire. Here’s a perfect example of what I’m
thinking. Every Thanksgiving, most local supermarkets have coloring
contests for the kids. There are contests for different age groups,
from the five-year-olds to the twelve-year-olds (or so). The older,
grade-school children always color their drawings very carefully,
always remembering to stay inside the lines, just like the grownups
told them.
But
the youngest group, the four- and five-year-olds…wow. No staying
inside the lines. No being careful. And no obeying the grownups'
stupid rules. These drawings are completely chaotic messes;
pure expressionism. These little children only think about having
a good time and living out their imaginations, and these are ALWAYS
the best drawings on the supermarket walls.
 I
think it’s funny, and quite telling. Like I’ve said
before, I honestly believe that the average four-year-old has more
artistic prowess than most adults. It’s funny that these children
are naturally in touch with something that older people, as adults,
have to go to college and struggle to relearn.
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