I love how creative and talented Noble can be.  That’s one of the greatest joys of being a parent: seeing their creative minds emerge.

And being a creative type myself, I understand how it doesn’t take much to stifle that creativity. Simple statements can shut down these magnificent artistic engines.  Examples of this might be, “I don’t get it”, or “you can’t draw that”, or “that’s not art, that’s hummus! And that’s not a canvas, that’s the interior of my car!”

Children just seem to be naturally free and expressive.  But how do you draw the line between creative expression and appropriateness?  Every now and again we will see pictures, from Noble, of people in airplanes exploding other airplanes and people peeing on things that explode. That’s just what children draw…I hope.  But it’s never been to the creative extent of his most recent piece.  I had recently purchased him a drawing pad, and instead of drawing on one piece, and then moving on to the next, he layed the pad sideways and created this extremely long canvas from two sheets.  But that’s not where it stops.  He then tapes the two pages together, and continued drawing onto another set of two pages!  And he taped it all together!  It’s brilliant!  But the picture ON that enormous taped together poster… well…

I don’t think I can quite do it the justice that Noble can, and so I managed to get his explanation on video. If you have a couple minutes, check out this video of Noble explaining his art.

This is absolutely hilarious. Even his descriptions have me rolling! So my question is this: where is the line? Obviously this isn’t the most tasteful subject matter. But who am I to tell him what he can and can’t draw? On the other hand…hmm, is there another hand? How do you handle this kind of art? I say it’s fantastic, because I laugh heartily when I look at it.  But drawing farts in school probably isn’t the most acceptable form of art.

Have you guys ever had to deal with bizarre, tasteless art? What was the picture/art? How did you handle it? I, personally, can’t say, “We don’t draw  pictures of people farting…” I just can’t.  I think the only thing I can do is frame it and hang it in the kitchen or something.  Because nothing would make me happier than explaining to a guest, in a serious art afficienado fashion, with my tight black pants and black turtle neck, and possible scarf…”Oh, and this one right here, this is a man who’s just, well he’s just letting out a whole thing of diarrhea…just for fun.”

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