Parents discuss bringing creativity into their children’s lives, even in a pandemic

Meji Alabi, director and photographer

Like many other parents in this creative industry, I struggle with the balance of spending recreational time with the kids as well as nurturing a budding career, so during the pandemic, we’ve definitely taken advantage of the time to become closer as a family. I have a three-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl who are at very different stages of development, but of course, my boy just wants to do everything his big sister does, so he’s benefitting a lot from the close proximity. My daughter just seems to be the opposite of myself at her age. Whilst I was into sports and academics, finding creativity later in life, she seems to despise athletics with her parents and opts for painting, drawing picture after picture, and of course, Roblox… which I’m not sure how to feel about yet. Time will tell.

Being a director myself I’ve noticed my daughter taking an interest in making her own “slime” videos, which we’ve attempted, but we’re still in the editing stages. She’s very inspired by YouTubers Ronald and Karina and wants to record her own videos, once asking me how famous I am on YouTube…. a question which I couldn’t answer straight. Her mother is a godsend when it comes to keeping the creative juices flowing. From jigsaw puzzles to watercolour painting to gardening, we try to keep the kids active with their hands. Although raised in the UK, I come from a very African upbringing which focused mainly on education, so while I understand the importance of education and academics I feel I may have missed out a little bit on creative elements, but that was just the way things were. I think it’s important especially in these early years to instil a creative free-thinking bug in your kids because in a changing world there are so many different paths to success now.

I feel that we must encourage creativity from a young age but in a way that’s tangible. The most recent realisation for me since having kids is that the digital world is taking away the beauty in some of our creativity. Kids love to feel things and watch things come to life. I bought her a cheap digital camera – she snapped a few times with it and eventually, I found it in a corner somewhere collecting dust because it was just so disposable. But I bought a pack of polaroids and I found that she fell in love with the process and also the understanding of: well, I only have so many of these so I need to make sure they count, which also teaches her discipline with the camera and the subject.

Hisham Akira Bharoocha, artist

As an artist, I make a lot of work using drawing, painting, collage and through music and I try to expose my son to all these mediums. As parents, we’ve taken our son to museums and galleries since he was an infant. When the timing works out, we have taken him to music performances as well.

My child absorbs creativity the same way he absorbs any other type of information. I listen to a lot of music and I have a lot of instruments lying around our apartment. When he was a baby he would pick up instruments and we would “jam” together. I had a semi-broken acoustic guitar and I would set it on an open tuning so he could strum it or bang it with a drumstick. One of my favourite games we do now is “band practice” where we play air guitar and drums, singing rock versions of ABCD and other songs he knows. He’s interested in strange sounds so we got him a kid’s synthesiser called the Blipbox.

He goes through phases of enjoying making art. At the moment he is really into pouring paint and other art materials out or into different containers. He finger-paints and loves using brushes but often he just paints his hands till they are totally drenched in paint, squishing the paint around in both hands.

I find if you want your kid to be creative, it’s good to watch them try things out but not push your rules on to them. They need to learn so much by trial and error. I try to add to my son’s ideas instead of constructing a narrative for him.

I feel bringing creativity into a child's life is important so they can imagine outside of the box. Creativity can be applied to life in many ways and with the current political climate and environmental issues escalating I feel that every child should learn to problem solve, and creativity helps lead to that kind of thinking. To create new systems when old ones are failing we need people who can push ideas to a level that has not been imagined yet. Letting a child go wild with their imagination is the best thing for them and for the future of humanity.

During quarantine these sites are useful for parents: Art Here Now, and Ashleigh Corrin Webb’s We're Going to be OK.

Elise Peterson, illustrator and artist

Sargent was immersed in creativity from the beginning. I illustrated two children’s books between being pregnant and his first birthday: How Mams Love Their Babies and The Nightlife of Jacuzzi Gasket. When we moved from New York to LA, I came upon a huge studio space. I would bring him with me almost every day. He’d get into everything. I was working with foam and chairs, so I’d have lots of wood pieces lying around (it was dangerous only some of the time). He especially loved to pick those up, bang them, rebuild them, whatever. I’d have friends come and create, and as long as he had a snack he’d hang out with me and friends during our creative processes. Sargent also loves music (dad is a musician) so I’ll play music in the studio, to start off, and wind down our day. Watching music videos ended up being our great compromise between kid and adult shows. We started collecting different musical instruments from guitars to drums. There was a time where Sargent was especially into Steve Lacey and he’d play along on his guitar while we watched his music vids. He’s a wild drummer! As he grew older, he became more interested in working with crayons, paint, and anything he can construct, like blocks or clay. Time outside has been crucial. It’s where we investigate colour in nature, grounding ourselves, and having fun exploring. Unfortunately, we are not always in a park, or studio, or even have time to set up a creative activity. I’ve found that simply asking him questions, really taking a full moment to consider and respond has led to the most robust and very very silly moments between us. He keeps me curious. I created Jug’s World because of that shared curiosity. Jug’s World is about honouring the earth and creating your reality. I started off with free downloadable colouring pages and will continue to release more original, kids content through the seasons.

David Stewart, photographer

There was no intention that my three children, now all adults, would end up working in the creative industry, it just turned out that way. I can only conclude that as they were brought up by parents who worked in the industry (my wife has a background in textiles), this somehow influenced them to take art subjects at school and university. They were encouraged to do what they felt was right for them, and to follow their instincts and individual interests.

When they were around ten, 12 and 15 years old, my photography was much more about what I observed going on around me (for example my book Thrice Removed). Consequently, they became models in some of the images, witnessing firsthand what I did. They were interested enough to discuss the project and contribute to the ideas. A few years later, when they were all teenagers, my next project was Teenage Pre-Occupation which looked specifically at their age group. They contributed to this by helping to organise some of the shots of their friends, and also with discussions of what it was like to be a teenager at this time. My daughter Alice also wrote some words which appeared in the resulting book.

To them, being involved may have seemed a bit of a nuisance at the time, but looking back now, they like the images. They view them as a marker in time of a bigger story, not just family snaps. I sometimes think they understand my work better than I do, but then they do have a better art education and recognise many references I am totally unaware of.

As they have grown older, they have been a constant help to me, discussing various topics for future projects and encouraging me to do things. It has turned around from me encouraging them. This shared experience has probably been rewarding to all of us.

As for something other to share with your children, I have found music and films are really important and become influential points of reference as you look back in time.

Leonie Bos, illustrator

I became a mother when I was 25. I had just graduated from art school and moved to Amsterdam. With a friend, I squatted in a burned-down apartment which we used as a studio. Here we painted for our upcoming admission to a prestigious postgraduate programme. Needless to say, unplanned motherhood was not part of my plan of action! It had quite an impact on my sense of responsibility, on my purpose and consequently on my strategy. I decided to swap fine arts for a profession with a more likely chance of success. Since I had been passionately drawing all my life, illustrating felt like an obvious and more lucrative direction.

The first ten years I didn’t have a studio. I worked from home, at my kitchen table, so the kids experienced my process up close. I met many a deadline with one of them on my lap, drawing simultaneously. I often asked them what they thought of an illustration when I wasn’t sure of its effect. Children are very sharp-eyed, this makes them perfect testbeds. So, you would imagine that they are quite indoctrinated, and yes, they certainly love drawing and crafting, but preferably in a... supervising way. With most of our little DIY projects, we start off all kumbaya but somewhere along the way they always quietly pull out and lean back. Expectantly watching me turning toilet paper rolls into TNT dynamite bars, tea boxes into Minecraft blocks, PET bottles into rocket launchers. Often I just get too carried away to notice I’m doing most of it by myself. Which in itself isn’t bad. I sense the calming effect it has on them, almost like they’re being hypnotised, but it does make me wonder; maybe the whole process, to them, is just a means to an end. They only care about a satisfying result. Or worse, could I make them feel slightly discouraged? I’m sure this is pedagogically questionable. I should think this over while I’m cutting-and-pasting this week’s cardboard sniper rifle...