A child's art

I've been trying to formulate this for some while...Artistic Expression of Children who cannot yet write....there's got to be a better way to say that...amazes me.

My boys have AMPLE language skills, verbally. They can talk a stone into dust. They can out-talk and out-think their daddy. They have a story for everything. So far, however, they cannot put those ideas into written words.

They can, however, (with increasing aptitude) record ideas in images. These pictures they color are Significant to them, though I cannot tease meaning from them without the artist providing a narrative and explanation. (I have taken to writing the interpretation on the back, in pencil, along with the date.)

I wonder if the same image, these seemingly abstract "doodles," will represent the same ideas, stories, etc. to the artist in ten years. (I do not know, first hand, for I've never seen one of my childhood scribbles.) Will my boy be able to pick up some ink-blot looking picture he crafted and still know what it represents? What will it mean to him then? I have found these images can still carry significance over two years, experimenting on my six year old.

I used to wonder why parents put up such scribbles. Now I know. It puts that child that much closer to my proximity. I have something of their signature work at an arm's reach, while the child himself is 20 miles away. I can run my hand over the deep impressions of the colored pencil and almost feel his helter-skelter sketching. I can almost hear his voice telling me all about the picture.

Their stories, thoughts, and dreams can all be captured in these artistic artifacts, even before they learn to write all this in the code of written language. I wish my baby, who cannot even speak yet, could draw a little something. It would be fascinating to see how language and art evolve together. (Makes me wish I were back in school, studying such phenomena.)