forgotten

This is dedicated to anyone who still firmly cherishes the little kid in he or she, hibernating it might be but still alive and breathing at least, like baby breath or candle light, frail and forgotten. I was at a Picture Book seminar yesterday; one of the speakers Sally Rippin( an Australian Children’s Book writer/illustrator) did a wonderful job. It was inspirational listening to her and there is something in her speech that really strikes a chord. As a kid, we were great at expressing ourselves, we used to sing loudly, out of tune maybe but that did not stop us from enjoying singing; we used to dance wildly, for no particular reason most of the time, we just moved our body to the rhythm of happiness; we used to draw and scribble practically on any surfaces we could reach, be it the floor, the wall or the kitchen cabinet, we drew the sun, the star, the tree, the 5-petal flower and of course matchstick boy and girl, the whole world was then our drawing paper. We used to have endless burst of creativity, we were natural born artists in a way and no one could deny that. But strange enough, as we grew older, most of us just simply gave up the passport to creative freedom and stopped enjoying the fun. Why is this so? Have you ever asked yourself this question: why have I stopped drawing or singing or dancing or making handicrafts such as a birthday card like I used to? Does one have to be gifted in order to engage in such creative doing? I definitely do not think so. It’s not a question of whether you can but more whether you want to. We can all draw, that is something I strongly believe in.