 | | | Springhill Elementary School student Sam Swan's poem and artwork will be part of the "Befriending the Imagination" exhibition through June 27. Photo provided | | | | | | A celebration of kid wisdom and creativity can be found in San Francisco through June 27 in an exhibit at the Commonwealth Club called "Befriending the Imagination," which examines human imagination as an essential natural resource - not rare, but precious.
The exhibit features 35 picture poems made by children, along with 10 of Lafayette resident J. Ruth Gendler's monotypes - a kind of printmaking produced by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. Gendler has been a Poet in the Schools for over two decades, and has been at Springhill Elementary School in Lafayette since 1994.
Gendler feels that now more than ever, there is a need for the arts for children due to their increasingly digitized and constantly interrupted world. "Creativity is contagious" she explains. "It's very easy to lose it." Her lessons to third, fourth and fifth graders at Springhill have more of a human rhythm, with poems, questions, and building on examples of things like water or faces, sometimes seeing old things in a new way. The student's thoughts are expressed visually and with language creating truly unique and authentic personal imagery.
"Adults who have seen the show so far have been charmed by the children's art but surprised and moved by the sophistication of the writing. As I like to say the children's writing is often casually profound and profoundly hopeful," said Gendler, who has published three books, and is a poet and artist herself. Stanley Middle School student Sarah Zemelman, whose work will be on display explains that "it's a great way to express feeling." Fellow artist and Stanley student Sam Swan enjoys the creative process and suggests, "don't be afraid to write down the words that are in your head" as a method of finding subject matter.
The Commonwealth Club is located at 595 Market Street, second floor, in San Francisco. The exhibit can be viewed Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. For more information, call (415) 597-6700.
My words are paint
Making an image to last the ages
To create a picture in your mind
To touch the delicate fabric of thoughts
To create a web of ideas
To make a story for young people to enjoy
To paint on the canvas of reality for all to see.
- Sam Swan, written in fifth grade, 2013
My face holds the past
Sorrow, loss, joy, bravery and same
of ancestors long gone by
With many tales
of heroism and pain.
Lost in the pages of time.
Leading up to the present
Me
My eyes shadow other faces
Thousands of years old
My ears have packed away stories forgotten
Longing to be told once more
My nose a crease of endless time
My features old, cruel and kind.
- Sarah Zemelman, sixth grade
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA