Painting: "Childhood is Forever"

 Painting: "Childhood is Forever"

“For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.” –John Connolly

Early childhood experiences from birth to age eight affect the development of the brain's architecture, which provides the foundation for all future learning, behavior and health. A strong foundation helps children develop the skills they need to become well-functioning adults.  (Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Director Harvard Center on the Developing Child)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Art Instructor 

Childhood is Forever, in acrylic on canvas by Hannah Hediko P Laurente and Harish Hamiko P Laurente, in 3 sessions, under the tutorship of the author at the Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.  August 2024,

Childhood is... 

• Childhood is a time in our life when everything seems perfect and wonderful. 
• Childhood is a world far away from the real world free from burdens and tensions.
• Childhood is a period to learn and master the essentials of life and living.
• Childhood is the full and harmonious development of personality in a family environment.
• Childhood is living in an atmosphere of happiness, understanding and love.
• Childhood is time to enjoy bedside stories, family anecdotes, and life updates. 
• Childhood is pure bliss, light moments, treasured memories, captured innocence.
• Childhood is wishing to be older, and when in old age wishing to be  younger.

Full view of the painting (15" x 18") with details shown in succeeding images.

                    Man - Child of Years Ago*

This is a beautiful world to the young:

     Faces clouds make, and kites fly high,

In kaleidoscopic colors of the sun. 

     While nests on trees sweetly cry.

If not for the fish and Siberian breeze. 

     The fields sleep, save a songbird;

But the clock doesn't stop in hammock's ease -

     A chime's urging to be heard.

Not enough is summer, transient is the game

     That starts with glee and ends with sigh

As the season ends; but it is not the aim

     Of the sky to make children cry.

Freud and Thoreau - these great minds before saw

     What  makes man, child of years ago,

Wading in a pond or climbing a bough, 

     His kite rising to heaven's glow. 

  

Details: A flock of white doves playfully takes care of their fledglings and chicks in their nests, among kites hanging in the trees.  Right, treetops serve as playground and home of many creatures like gecko lizard and wild bees, as well as foothold of ferns, lianas and orchids.  

"White doves are symbolic of new beginnings, peace, fidelity, 

love, luck and prosperity." (A Dove's Love)

 

 

Promenading is a pastime in a beautiful scenery, a happy moment communing with Nature.  Right, wild fowls, reptiles, amphibians, fish and other living things abound in a pristine and unspoiled environment.  They comprise the natural landscape and ecological system.   A pristine environment is synonymous with “untouched,” a place where human hands have not intruded into the natural progression of life, and not corrupted by civilization.

                                                Loafing

Oh, how we love the fields like farmers do,

But not our classmates in school though;

And Nature more than our teachers know

What the sun and rain in childhood sow.*

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”- Sir John Lubbock 

Fishing is but a hobby, a kind of sport friendly to nature.  Here a fisherboy is not a stranger to the wildlife* indigenous to the place, indeed a manifestation of a friendly and harmonious relationship bound by a primal treaty of man and nature. 

Fisherboy** 

By a stream on a rock ledge many a dream grew with the water flowing, the clouds rising, the breeze whispering in a nearby tree, its shade creating images of art and fantasy.

Hours lazily passed, but how short was a day fishing, from sunrise to noon and back again when the fish would return, the bamboo pole suddenly becoming heavy with a big catch.   

Other boys join the cheer, the louder the bigger the fish was, or fading with a whimper when it got away, and it was always "the big fish that got away," an adage of every fisher folk.

Away from town, away from school, away from home for a while - this freedom in innocence and adventure, the elders would call laziness, stubbornness and aimlessness in growing up.

Boys don't know the difference grownups want them to be, but wait for their own time, when childhood yields to the demands of the world, the world though big is "prison" to grownups. 

They too, were children before - the "man in the boy" comes later when there are no more big fish to catch, the tree has overgrown the rock ledge and other boys are longer around. 

Like birds migrating and returning, season after season in Vivaldi's refrain, and Mozart's lament, life goes on in rhythm, but time couldn't wait, while dreams sought for reality. 

There are many fish in the world, the biggest to catch always a dream - fame, ideas, wealth, sacrifice, honor, popularity - aiming at these to the end, in triumph, surrender or defeat. 

Years later a man in gray hair appeared, he saw a familiar boy fishing, his thoughts seemed far away, his fishing pole bending to his excitement, then snapped - it was the big fish that got away. ~

Wildlife is integral to the world's ecosystems, providing balance and stability to nature's processes. The goal of wildlife conservation is to ensure the survival of these species, and to educate people on living sustainably with other species. - National Geographic Society

 

Workshop attendees include parents of children participants, as well as older art enthusiasts who comprise a separate but similar art workshop sessions at the Center conducted regularly by the author upon requests from the community, organizations and schools, such as the University of Northern Philippines.  

 

Growing Up With Art**

Kids' World Apart from "Kids"  

Take a break from computers and the mall,

     confines of the small; 

break the wall of idleness, go for the ball

     fast and make a goal.  

Solve the puzzle, some genius await you

     for all you know;

left to right of the brain and back will show

     a wider view of you.   

Take the road rough, look ahead, move on,

     from the bandwagon;

it's your adventure, and follow the sun,   

     sunrise to sundown. ~   

             * AVRotor, Don't Cut the Trees, Don't UST 2010

         ** avrotor.blogspot.com Living with Nature