Lessons from Children the experts in Wonder
i
am an artist and illustrator and these
little dynamos form a vital component in
my creative fuel
full to the brim with potential hope
possibility and wonder they’re
completely unprejudiced
completely honest completely original
they all are isn’t it strange then
that instead of listening and learning
from them we ask that they sit still
and be quiet so that we can educate them
to be more like us
it’s important that you’re listening
what did i just say
before they arrived i’ve been taught to
think
that everything needed to be taken very
very
very seriously asked to leave
my untamed thoughts vivid imagination
and wild ideas
outside the classroom door to be
replaced by the same
second-hand knowledge and information
that everyone else was getting i’ve been
led to believe
like so many people that life was about
collecting and consuming as much
knowledge
and experience as possible to turn into
this perfect
respectable responsible version of
myself
along the way something had gone missing
my ability to play be wild fluid
and learn from my mistakes have been
replaced with a rigidity
and a need to get things right
instead of getting closer to this
self-made goal
of optimum successful meanness
i was getting further away
i wasn’t happy it
i wasn’t happy
so i made a decision that changed my
life and my
practice as an illustrator and it
started
at home they began to talk
i began to listen
i gave myself three rules one
i would listen and keep a drawn diary of
all their most important
bizarre profound and ridiculous words
two the drawing had to be quick and
spontaneous
three i wasn’t allowed to rub anything
out
and i had to be completely true to what
they said
in doing this i rediscovered pure wonder
imagination buried under an avalanche of
information
made its way back to the surface doors
that had closed
reopened eyes that have become tired
were awake
this is what i learned the time travel
is possible
never follow the crowd
believe in the impossible
achieve greater balance
that we’re made up of the same stuff as
everything else
the world is your back garden
that the biggest ideas can be explained
in the simplest of ways
that what i do for a living doesn’t
define who i am as a person
the love is weird
that learning never ends
in constantly reaching ahead for a more
perfect version of myself
i left something behind something better
a part of me so i listened
and learned from the little experts in
potential
hope possibility and wonder
i was reminded that i was once like that
and could be again too
you