Never Too Young for Sculpture
I subscribe to a magazine called Sculpture and my five year old has been lately pouring through the issues and asking me lots of questions about sculpture in general and the sculptures he’s seeing in particular. It makes me very happy, I must admit, to look with him at photos of these abstract, beautiful sculptures and to watch him respond. He asks me what they are and I tell him I don’t know what they are but to me they look like [insert my interpretation] and then I ask what they look like to him. His interpretation is always surprising and always reminds me how the meaning of “art” is truly in the eye of the beholder (and a five year old boy beholds much differently than his 31 year old mother).
My only wish is that I could find some examples of sculpture that would really engage him, that would tickle his five year old self. Then today on my lunch break I visited the public art gallery I regularly visit and was delighted to find the work of Dennis Oppenheim on display. With the exception of a few sculptors whose work I adore, I really know nothing about sculptors at all, and hadn’t even heard of Dennis Oppenheim until I saw his work today. But what child (or adult for that matter) could resist sculptures like this? Or this? Or this (does it not look the house has rolled up to take a sip??)?
We have a sculpture park in my city and I have yet to take my boys to visit. I’m thinking a picnic is in order.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:08 am
You are a wonderful mum. x