Radiant Child
“His drawings are not neat or clean, nor does he color inside the lines. They are sloppy, ugly, and sometimes weird, but somehow still BEAUTIFUL.”
“Radiant Child” by Javaka Steptoe is a biography about an incredible artist - Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat was a famous artist that rocketed to fame in the 1980s whose work still resonates today.
Before he was a famous artist, he was a child artist with an incessant need to create. Many children can relate to his prolific ways. There never seems to be enough paper and blank spaces to cover with color for children.
According to Picasso, we are all born artists - the tough part is believing that into adulthood. When adults remind children to stay in the lines, and encourage children to draw their homes exactly them same - they are killing the essence of creativity and individual identity.
When asked to draw our house, how many of us would create the exact same image? A square home, triangle roof, two square windows, a tree to one side and a quarter-of-a-pie shaped sun in the corner. Is that even what your house looks like? Probably not. Someone sometime, however, said it was the “right” way and many of us have believed that instead of thinking for ourselves ever since.
Basquiat’s art was layered, messy, sometimes scary, but it was beautiful, honest and it was art. This sets the tone for asking your child “Who decides what is art, anyway?” It frees children to create what they imagine - before outside influences and criticisms set in. Who’s to say it’s prettier inside the lines?
Like the honesty in Basquiat’s work, Javaka Steptoe is honest about some of the early adversity Basquiat experiences in his childhood. He was hit by a car as a child, causing him to be hospitalized for an extended time and his mother suffered from mental illness and had to leave their home. The effects of these two significant events can be found throughout his work in images of anatomy, and crowns. All can be read as symbols of resilience and rising above tragedy.
This might be helpful for children who struggle, who feel odd, and “outside the lines” themselves. It’s a much needed reminder that all our “mess” is beautiful.
Some things to think about…
What makes something art? How can you tell if it is good art or bad art? Is there a such thing as bad art? How do you know?
Use collage, paint and drawing to express how you felt about something difficult that happened to you. It can be small or big. Art can be a fantastic tool for processing our feelings that sometimes cannot be expressed in words.
words and pictures by Javaka Steptoe
