It's OK to color outside the lines

Last week's Question of the Week in The Ledger was "who is your role model?" A young man named Nathan Stevens answered, "Superman." It made me chuckle, but it also made me think of a recent conversation about the wonder and innocence of the minds of children.

This conversation I had recently centered around art. When you are young, it's just fun to be creative and make artwork. It doesn't matter what it looks like, everyone loves it and is proud of you. You experiment with all types of media and learning composition, but mostly you are just being creative.

As we get older, we get ideas into our heads about what makes "good" art. We're told to stay within the lines (OK, maybe that's a good art lesson to learn). In journalism school, our graphic design classes taught about white space and designing within boxes.

As adults, however, I'm thinking we need to not stay within those boxes. Seeing some recent artwork of elementary students and hearing Nathan's answer to the question of the week made me long for no-stress time to just be creative. I have a sewing machine that has been in storage for years, a collection of scrapbooking supplies that is gathering dust, and the last time I pulled out my paintbrushes was to make turkeys out of wine bottles for Thanksgiving a few years ago (you can see a picture on our Facebook an Instagram pages).

Sometimes we all need to take a timeout and remember what it was like to create art as a kindergartener without a care for what anyone thinks. The world has enough stress, so take time to be creative and create what you want, not what an art critique or society's idea of "normal" thinks you should great.

If you need to reach me, I'll be working on a quilt I bought fabric for 15 years ago.

— Annie Wooden