Erase or Trace

Pencil lines are temporary.  So are many things in life.  I tell my school kids that once they have drawn something, they have to decide what needs to stay and what needs to go.  If it stays it gets traced.  Sometimes with marker, sharpie, colored pencil, pen, crayon or whatever.  If it goes-well then you have to erase it.

How is that for a life lesson?  Every day so many things happen to each of us, and we have to decide (figuratively) whether to erase it (let it go) or trace it (keep it in our life).  Granted, most - if not all of my students are far too young to comprehend this as a life lesson, but some of them "get it".

Five or was it six years ago my husband of more than two decades left our family.  Don't get sad-he didn't die, he walked.  Anyways I had to decide about many things-would I erase it or trace it?  What I discovered is that there are many things in our lives that are just fine being erased.  While I will agree that feelings are probably the hardest thing to erase or let it go (be honest how many of you have Idina Menzel singing in your head right now?) wouldn't it be so much easier if life came with a great big eraser?  We could just erase things in our past that we didn't want to remember-some fashions and hairdos from the 80's come to mind!

Here is the interesting thing.  Since many small children have such a death-grip on their pencils, their papers become embossed and when they erase lines they find that when they color over those erased lines, well there is a "ghost" of a line that remains.  The same is true with life- we may erase, or forget, or cease to acknowledge past events, but there is that embossing that remains on our souls.  We never totally get rid of those events, they make us who we are.  However, the things that we choose to trace, or emphasise truly define who we are.

The same is true of children's artwork.  Many times I have had a student fretting over those embossed lines that never seem to go away.  What I tell them is that there is the proof that you have tried, you have worked hard to finish this project!  By NOT tracing those lines and tracing others you have shown the world what you really want them to see.

We have all worked hard to be the person that we want to become.  Many of us have lines in our past or in our artwork that we wish would just disappear, but sometimes, those lines are there to stay.  Art is life and life is art.  Some lines we just have to deal with.  However, what we choose to trace (or emphasis) truly defines not only our artwork but also ourselves.

You may be surprised just how many of your young students will totally understand this.  He or she may not be able to erase a moment in their past-but they can choose to emphasise the great moments.