Summer AurtFest

Our breakfast nook, which felt super claustrophobic when we used it as such, has been redesignated a play space for our kids, or, as our eldest daughter claims it, "My Office." She is prolific drawer and colorer (and paper user!), to the extent that on certain days it appears she is simulating a child-drawing assembly line and must keep up with the conveyor belt Or Else. Days like these she can produce up to thirty works. Days like these I send many masterpieces to the recycling bin.

Earlier this month she began absconding with the tape and hanging her drawings all over the walls and windows. She made a sign declaring the assemblage her "Aurt," and proceeded to add more:


Then she and her cousin attended a week-long art camp hosted by two former students, which inspired her to invent her own, and she posted the following notices on our water cooler:

Not unlike the elaborate Castle-with-Princesses-and-Polly Pockets-and-Jewelry complexes she has created in her bedroom, the Aurt Installation creates that parenting dilemma: how long do we let the show run before dismantling and cleaning? When will taking it down not completely piss off or crush her?

Hard to say. So it stays. Even though, to my critic's eye, this series of scribbling and dribbling of water and then smudging of ink is not her magnum opus.