The Peanut Gallery
Written By Juliette Guilbert
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Give your kids' art proper display space and you won't have to save every masterpiece.
I'm begging, and my 5-year-old is in tears.
"Come on, sweetie," I plead. "It's not even a real picture. Let me recycle it."
"No!" she yells, grabbing the soiled napkin on which she's created her latest Miroesque ink drawing. "It's for YOU, Mommy," she says.
I take the napkin and, with a sigh, tack it up on the refrigerator, alongside about 30 of her other recent works.
I know I should love it, this explosion of my daughter's unique personhood. And mostly I do. But it's getting hard to shut the fridge. I've taken to throwing away excess artwork under cover of night, when Lillian can't see me. Must I hang on to every balled-up scrap of aluminum foil in order to appreciate her masterpieces?
Less Is More
When I called Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, founder of Apartment Therapy, a design service and blog devoted to uncluttered domestic serenity, he was totally down with the idea of encouraging creativity by (gasp!) throwing stuff out.
Gillingham-Ryan told me that clearing out old art actually encourages fresh bursts of inspiration, something he discovered during the seven years he spent as a Waldorf teacher. He recommended that I create one "intentional, beautiful" display space (not the fridge) to show off selected works from Lil and her big sister Aurora. "Choose one really nice spot that everyone can see and that has boundaries so it can't spread," he said. I chose a living room wall, adult territory, to give the "gallery" a feeling of importance.
However you display the work, be selective and keep things moving. The art should go up and down fairly regularly, Gillingham-Ryan says. Instead of reams of stuff you never see, keep very little but display it beautifully, using some of the following ideas.
Hit the High Wire
Choose one picture each month and mount it with previous selections along your child's bedroom wall, timeline-style, to chart her artistic development. Design catalogs sell sleek steel wall-mounted cable systems 6 ($34, westelm.com) to which you can clip artwork and photos; DIYers can approximate these with yarn or wire and clothespins or binder clips.
Get Digital
Memorialize selected works— your child's blue period, say, or her armless bodies phase— by scanning them into your computer and creating cool keepsakes. To make a glossy poster, scan 4 to 16 pieces, then visit shutterfly.com or snapfish.com for the poster design and printing (about $20 to $25). If you'd rather not handle the technical aspects, try a print shop— just call first to make sure they do scanning. Once the items are scanned, all you need to do is decide how you want them to look on the poster and choose the background.
Live Large
FedEx Kinko's will turn PDFs of artwork into large-format prints 1 on foam core (around $80 and up).
Go Mobile
Commission your artist to cut up her old art and create a simple mobile with a wire hanger and thread, or use Fotofalls' mobile photo clip. ($21, umbra.com)
Make It Magnetic
Updating the artwork on display isn't difficult if you create a magnetic gallery. Use four coats of magnetic primer (Magic Wall, $36 for 32 ounces, kling.com), then cover it with the wall color of your choice. Mount artwork with super-strong magnets (regular fridge magnets won't hold). Shape-Up! magnets from Three by Three Seattle ($8 per 4-pack at fridgedoor.com) are too big to swallow and come in a variety of colors and shapes such as stars, birds, and arrows.
Blow Up
The hardest part? Inflating the frames — so let the artist do it. Then slide the work-of-the-week in the pocket and hang. (Instant Masterpiece Blow Up Frame, $10, Brooklyn5and10.com)
Tape It Off
If your child should happen to draw directly on the wall, don't panic. Incorporate it into the gallery by surrounding it with Do-Frame Tape. It works for pieces he made elsewhere too. ($15, chocosho.com)
Frame It
Lil' Da Vinci frames ($29 to $37, dynamicframes.com) swing open and store extra artwork (can you say spacesaver?). Or showcase your rotating collection in tried-and-true acrylic box frames. ($2 to $23, archivalusa.com)
