Birthdays, solstice, anniversaries and New Years are such wonderful triggers for reflection, memories and storytelling. While many make resolutions, I tend to think about experiences that have inspired my thoughts and actions. Returning to these memories or ideas provide me with a path for forward motion.

For five or six years I have hung words from The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) on the studio door at SWS. I often reread them as they deeply represent my beliefs. I wish I wrote them. What I can do is actualize them.

Yesterday, I took the Kindergarten students, teachers and parents on the annual trip to Baltimore to the AVAM. It is my favorite museum and favorite place to introduce  others to. For this post, I will share the powerful AVAM words from my studio door, with images from my work/life.

AVAM’s Seven Educational Goals

1. Expand the definition of a worthwhile life.

Images from visit to the Folger Theatre Costume Shop with room 9 Kindergarteners.

Natalie’s rendering

2. Engender respect for and delight in the gifts of others.

Nick Cave Exhibit at Mary Boone Gallery in NYC, 2011

Evidence of children at work…

AVAM Art Bus

Sanjay Patel Exhibit at the Museum of Asian art in San Fran, 2011

Yarn Bomb in SoHo, 2011

Horse Bomb at SWS, 2011

“A Flying Ms. McLean” By Fiona, 2012

3. Increase awareness in the wide variety of choices available in life for all…particularly students.

4. Encourage each individual to build upon his or her own special knowledge and inner strengths.

5. Promote the use of innate intelligence , intuition, self exploration, and creative self-reliance.

This happened a few days ago. During free time in the studio, Winnie (PreK) asked “Why are there letters on the bells? I explained that the musical scale has letters that go C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C and it was the same thing they sing up and down with Ms. Rachel in Music. She said,”Wait, say them again.” As I did, she arranged the bells in order and played them. I went about my own thing, and awhile later came upon this…

6. Confirm the great hunger for finding out just what each of us can do best, in our own voice, at any age.

(Katie’s Bluebird)

7.Empower the individual to choose to do that something really, really well.

EmmaClare wanted to making something that flies that she could carry like a purse.

Tremendous words of wisdom. For all. I am so thankful for the American Visionary Art Museum.

This morning I was reading an article in the Washington Post about the children’s author, Mo Willems. He wrote “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.”  and more. Once again, words of wisdom. I am ending this post with a quote from the article:

“He’s not afraid to show kids failing,” says Willem’s friend Tom Waburton, a fellow animator. “He’s not afraid to show that bad things can happen and good things can come out of that. There’s something underneath everything he does.”

That something is…humanity, perhaps? Compassion? Psychological strife? Or maybe it’s something simpler, like Willem’s explanation of how he writes for children as though they are all wise souls.

“Adults and children,” he says, “are members of the same species.”

“It’s one of those sentences that means nothing and everything, depending on how you read it.   (The author who revels in a small fan base by Monica Hesse, Washington Post, 1/7/2012)

It means everything to me.

Call them not your children. Call them your builders. -The Talmud

Happy New Year 2012