Art Management 101

Young children come home from school, Sunday school, and other places with wonderful art projects they've made. We have a craft area for the kids so they can create many masterpieces right at home. I really appreciate the words of advice that our preschool gave with regard to appreciating their masterpieces: Don’t ask what it is, instead ask them to tell you about it. Luckily I got that advice pretty early on in my mothering career so I haven’t made too many of those “what is THIS?” blunders when I should have known that it was an airplane or a self portrait or whatever. Even though I get great explanations about the artwork that enters my house, I can not be the only one guilty of thinking “WHERE am I going to put this?” when praising my child on the 24”x36” poster about God creating the world that they made in Sunday school. I have some rules of thumb to prevent my kids’ artwork from cluttering up my house.

1) If it is mostly school-made and not child-made it goes in the trash the evening of the same day it entered the house

a. “school-made” means that the school printed out, cut out or laid out all the parts and the child merely put them together in the manner they were instructed leaving no creative expression from the child
b. “Child-made” means that the idea or creative spin on the project came from the child rather than specifically guided instructions from someone else.

2) There must be a clearly defined area for artwork to be displayed, (usually a door, a framed bulletin board or some other clearly defined area), and that area is NOT the refrigerator!

3) Coloring pages get bottom priority to all other child-made projects and should not occupy more than 50% of the designated art display area.

4) Artwork must be rotated as it comes in so that it does not spill outside the designated art display area.

a. “Rotation” means that one artwork finds the trash as another artwork finds a place on the designated art display area
b. Should artwork appear that you do not want to find the trashcan but has overstayed its welcome, (beyond 3 months or out of season), see rule 6), 7) or 8).

5) One piece of artwork is not to overlap another. (This keeps the designated art display area from becoming cluttered and it truly shows off the pieces that are there.)

6) If it is something truly wonderful that we want around for a long time it gets a frame and is placed somewhere in the house.

7) If the artwork is of construction paper size or smaller and is very special we may place it in the posterity box or with the seasonal decorations if it is seasonal so it can be displayed annually.

8) If the artwork is something that we do not want in a frame or can not frame due to the size/shape/construction then we will take a digital photo of it (or scan it) before disposing of it and once we have several pictures of various art pieces we will order an art photo book of the pictures for each child/artist.

9) If the work of art is something that can not be taped or pinned to the designated art display area it may sit on the counter for the remainder of the day that it arrived and if the child does not want to part with it they may keep it in their room until their little brother destroys it or I find it trampled on the floor somewhere or it is no longer coveted and I can safely dispose of it.

My kids are not aware of these “rules” and this is the first time I have ever written them. These guidelines that I have implemented really do keep the peace and keep order in our house. The quantity of artwork that will enter this house could easily fill several rooms in our house by the time they graduate high school if I didn’t have some sort of artwork storage/display system. These rules also help to alleviate the mother’s guilt that often accompanies disposing of artwork.

P.S. The picture of Mary with baby Jesus above is in a frame in our living room. Decorating your home with your children's artwork can be both special and frugal.