These are my kids....
A picture of us from a while back when the 'juggling' was quite pronounced.
I was an artist long before I had children, so they were both raised and immersed in the Art world from the 'get go'.
No, he's not a painting prodigy. This was a plein air study of mine, but he liked using brushes and doing the motion that he saw me doing so often. (I made sure the paintings were dry and his brushes were clean!)
Here, they are age 4 and 7 on a plein air painting adventure with me.
This drawing kept him busy so I could spend 'just a little more time' looking at the Art in the Museum. You've got to love Museums with 'kid activities'!
Museum visits to sculpture gardens were always a favorite. They 'act out' the sculpture for entertainment. We have MANY photos of them "thinking" under Rodin's Thinker somewhere in the world...
At Rodin's Home and Gardens in Paris....
At the Legion of Honor in San Francisco...
My son photographing "David" in Florence Italy.
At the home where Da Vinci died in Amboise, France -
playing ghosts in the yard on our way out just after dark.
They have accompanied me onto the stage to accept awards. They have painted along side me at plein air painting events. They have slept in their car seats while I painted nocturnes from the parking lot.
They have had to sit quietly through demonstrations and Artist talks - when it was "my turn". (We would always search out a playground first, stopping there before hand so it could be "their turn" first and get that out of their system.)
As they got older, they would willingly accompany me on very early mornings into Yellowstone National Park to paint the sunrise. They have gone to many Art Fairs on weekends, drinking entirely too much lemonade so I could talk with customers for a moment - uninterrupted.
They have been to more museums and seen more great Art than the vast majority of adults...
Now, I have 2 teenagers - "in-house" art critics. And pretty good at it, since teenagers certainly don't hold back! We may not be the 'usual' family. It does take a good amount of creative juggling, but it seems to work for us.
Happy Mother's Day to all my fellow juggling Mother's out there!