The primordial urge of childhood is to re-invent the world, to reject the already-signified (be it a Lego castle, or a Tonka truck), in favor of the disassembled and fragmentary—the yet-to-be. Children break toys apart, reduce them to raw materials, and re-combine them in order to contravene the laws of nature and manufacture. All children are surrealists at heart. They can make a squid drive a bus, and draw speech from a log.
My own children inspire me by refuting the rules and values which govern the adult world, by retreating into the forest of their imaginations. They show me what it means to be a creator rather than a proprietor: to see in the world things worth making not just worth owning.
(Art by Mika, age 8.)
