04/29/03’s illustrious band:

A Farm of Dogs

Brought to you by schoolkids’ art.

I spent Easter weekend away from home, so when the big day arrived, we located a nearby church to attend services. The church we chose had a school attached, and we found ourselves walking down a long hallway lined with children’s artwork. Some of the projects had religious themes, like the gathering of construction-paper sheep following their Holy Shepherd. Someone had taped up the poor beasts nose-to-tail, and all of Jesus’ flock appeared to be sniffing one another’s butts.

There was also a Shroud of Turin project, in which kids had drawn portraits of Jesus on scraps of cloth to represent the Shroud. Clearly all the artists worked from the same picture of Jesus, since the drawings resembled each other quite a lot. However, there was still room for individual variances of style. Some Jesuses had long curly hair and full beards and moustaches, while others were clean-shaven. Hipster Jesus had a goatee, Amish Abe Jesus had only a beard, and Trucker Jesus sported a handlebar ‘stash that covered most of the canvas. Then there was Ponytail Jesus, whose hair sprouted from a tight bunching at each side of his head. And who knows, maybe He did look like all these portraits at different times, to different people. One thing all the drawings had in common, though: He was smiling in each and every one.

The wall of color studies showed a more open-ended assignment. The children had evidently been instructed to choose a color, then draw a picture incorporating that color in context. So we saw the usual examples, like “Green is grass,” illustrated by a lush meadow, and “Red is apples” above several bright fruits. Among the less usual examples: “Brown is logs floating on the water” and “Orange is a penguin’s feet,” in which the penguin frolicked happily in a field of flowers and trees. The family favorite was “Brown is a farm of dogs,” and sure enough, next to the red barn danced a pack of happy dogs.

What’s brown where you live?

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