Artsy Craftsy

“I’m going to make this for my stepsister,” proclaims one girl as she lays her brush in broad strokes across the canvas.

“I’m making this one for my dad for his birthday,” replies another.

Here I sit in the Arts and Crafts Pavilion at Singing Hills for the first day of activities.  A fat Jerusalem Cricket perches on one of the open rafters, chirping occasionally.  A row of closets is built into one wall.  Their doors stand open to reveal stacks of canvasses, jugs of paint, and anything else a young imagination could possibly need to create a masterpiece.  And those young imaginations are all around me.

The practice of arts and crafts has a long and storied tradition among summer camps and LLYC is no different.  Today, these particular campers huddle over the beginnings of week-long projects.  Some of them paint solid color backgrounds on canvasses while others use stencils and crayons to etch shapes on paper.

One girl and I get involved in a discussion of the merits of blue and orange, her favorite colors.  Meanwhile, the boy next to her attacks his paper ferociously with crayon.

“Be careful,” warns Lincoln, one of the counselors in charge.  “You don’t want to make too many marks or the watercolor paint won’t stick later.”

I wish I could join in the creativity, but just then the bell near the Ranch House rings signaling the end of this activity time.  Projects abandoned until tomorrow, these young artists troop off into the hot morning sun.