Camden students from Kindergarten through 3rd grade did their own variations of “X-5” by Robert Indiana* who was influenced by Charles DeMuth’s “Number Five in Gold.”
It’s great to see how children interprete and create their own variations on a theme. They were given an outline of Indiana’s star in a circle and asked to draw a large number 5 either on top of the star or “behind” it. The teacher then mounted the squares of artwork on red paper in a series of X’s (reiterating the theme) throughout the school. How colorful it was.
In the past children’s artwork has also been exhibited in City Hall. People coming in to pay a tax bill or attend to some other matter stop to look and momentarily forget the business at hand. The display is a gift to them. It makes them think of their own children or their own childhood.
It’s important to display children’s artwork for the sake of the students themselves and for the sake of adults to keep them in touch with spirit of youth.
*Indiana is the creator of “Love” statue in Philadelphia
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