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Delinquent artist

 

When I open the door to Anna's room at the end of rest time, I face a wild mass of pink and purple and blue swirls on walls that could be a Jackson Pollock exhibit, but is the chalk work of my expressive three-year-old.

The evidence of her adventures over three walls is fantastic. Silently I prize Anna's imagination, while scolding her, removing the chalk, and scrubbing the walls. Once again, my pre-school artist has traded the boundaries of her blackboard for the vast canvas of white walls.

Last week I discovered purple trees on her bookcase. I chided her for that, and the next day found two dancing bunnies by the staircase. I must admit I've had little success at redirecting her passion for drawing on walls to drawing only on acceptable surfaces. Anna loves to draw on everything.

I suspect her three-year-old logic works like this: if I can write on a wall blackboard, why not the wall? Mom gives me pieces of wood to paint, so the furniture must be fine too. The logic is clear, even rational, I concede. Maybe she really doesn't understand the difference.

But there are clues: she doesn't ask before venturing to draw on forbidden surfaces, and she does it while I'm busy elsewhere. I think Anna knows exactly what mischief she's making. I think she is checking the fences, curious to discover what will happen when she jumps over.

A psychologist friend of mine agrees, and suggests it's consequence time.

"Patience," my mother soothes me. "She's only three. You drew daisies all over your brother's crib."

Neither of my other two kids did this kind of underground artistry, and I'm not sure how to stop it, while still promoting Anna's interest in drawing. So far, my solution has been to continue coaching her about what's okay and what isn't, offering plenty of paper, and making sure all available writing materials are washable.

But I'm beginning to see that she might need a bit more law enforcement than that. I may have to banish chalk and markers until the delinquent artist learns the difference between graffiti and art. Delinquent artist&emdash;what a contradiction: she's a vandal and a creator. No wonder I can't decide whether to bug her or hug her for her gifts.

In the meanwhile, she'll continue creating, but with close supervision. It's fun to sit with her while she draws, because she tells stories while she works. This afternoon she drew a picture of me with a circle face and a few extra stick limbs. There was an egg-shaped duck sitting beside me. The story went like this:

"One day, Mom came to see Rubber Ducky. 'Let's go pick blackberries,' Mom said."

Anna drew red berries all around Mom's hand.

"Rubber Ducky didn't want to pick berries. But Mom wanted to because they were starving. Then a fox and a wolf came along thinking for food."

Anna added a square and a squiggle for those characters.

"Mommy and Rubber Ducky jumped up (Anna made the drawing jump up), but the fox and the wolf ate them anyway."

She folded the paper over, so fox and wolf could eat them.

"Then a bear came along and they all ate up the apple. Then they ate up the muffin, and the string cheese, and they were all eating up food together."

By this time, the picture, like the story, was a jumble of images and scribbled action that no longer made much sense.

When that story ended with a fiery feast of color, Anna drew other stories, including one that featured green peas eating purple sheep, and a blue dog that liked to cook pencils. After completing each drawing, she implored, "Can you hang this up?"

Our walls are covered with Anna's drawings. Indeed, since her work covers the walls anyway, maybe she thinks she's streamlining the process by simply drawing on walls in the first place.

Oh, well. "All things will pass," my mother says. Anna probably won't draw on walls when she goes to college.

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