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Well, I had these semi-high falutin notions of my first blog post being about the nature of art and why art is important – and why art of kids is important but then this passed by me on the interwebs (via Colossal Art & Design) and it communicates better than I would.  It’s an installation by the fascinating artist Yayoi Kusama , entitled The Obliteration Room at Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. (Runs through March 12.)

It’s stunningly beautiful in it’s simplicity and impact.  It also answers, with frightening clarity, what will happen if you give the kids who visit your museum a bunch of stickers and a place to stick them.

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If you’ve ever experienced an entirely flat white room, you know how stunningly disorienting it is. This already disorienting room just becomes more so after the kids ‘obliterate’ it.  I love that.

It makes me think about:

• boundless energy,
• space and how we perceive it,
• the nature of joy and how to create it,
• what it’s like to be a kid and the wonder of not having boundaries,
• how I would love to work at this museum so that I could visit the installation regularly and
• all those little hands!

For me this piece is about what it is to be a kid.  Kusama perfectly creates a canvas and tools that react to the natural instincts of a kid to leave their mark and express themselves in an environment.  (It also carries with it a message that kids take your nice clean home/life and obliterate it with their energy, but that seems like a discussion for another day.)  It makes me stop and think and feel.  That, to me, is the difference between making pictures and making art.

So, it looks like this is the first blog post.  I hope you find it interesting cuz… I think that there will be lots of stuff like this.  I intend to write about the art of living (with kids) and the interconnectedness of it all.  There will be a lot of thoughts on our world, our place in it and how there is or can be beauty and art in our everyday lives.

xxoo

– K