Love, Art and the Child expresses that every child has a creative potential. It is based on the understanding that from the time of birth until a child is seven years old, he is absorbing everything in his environment. This is why it is a beautiful time to tap his creative genius.

Suggestions are given in the book to help you further this potential of the child. The book contains hundreds of art lessons with patterns and suggestions for teachers, parents, and friends to use in teaching art to children. The lessons are geared for children from three years and up.

Families may find Love, Art and the Child helpful by using it to further creative activities within the family circle. It may assist parents who are teaching at home or mothers who are giving childcare.

Marian Butler was born in Sacramento, California, on December 9, 1913. For most of her childhood, her home was in the country outside of Sacramento in an area called Carmichael, where she attended local schools.

Her country home was very beautifully landscaped and added to a creative, happy childhood. However, just three weeks before her high school graduation, her father died, which greatly changed her life. Marian and her mother then moved into Sacramento where Marian attended junior college. She later went on to graduate from San Francisco Teachers’ College.

She graduated in the midst of the Depression in 1936, when teaching jobs were hard to find. So her first year of teaching was in a private school that was very poorly equipped for properly teaching children. After that, her experience was in public schools.

She retired after forty years, but she was not finished teaching. She took training to become a Montessori teacher, and eventually moved to Montana, where she taught art in a Montessori preschool and a private grammar school for another thirteen years. She retired from teaching children in 1998, and then wrote her book, Love, Art and the Child.

Children love to create! Young children need to express themselves, yet their verbal ability is often very limited. It is important to provide the environment for children to express their innate abilities and their inner thoughts and feelings. Art can be the means for a child to express what he does, feels, and thinks about. Art can increase awareness through concrete sensory experiences and give the child a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.

The child is born to be a creative genius. He has all the potential hidden within his right brain to bring that creativity into the world in music, dance, and artwork of many kinds. So many times this creativity is snuffed out because of the ignorance of parents or schools he attends or because of violence of some kind in his environment.

In the home he should be able to listen to good music (rock music can destroy his sensitive abilities). He should be able to use his hands in manipulating art materials such as play dough, or in using markers, crayons, or paints freely on large sheets of paper. His efforts at creating should be encouraged and complimented, even though to an adult they may not make sense. Gradually, he will be able to create something recognizable.

I believe the goal for the young child is that he feels happy in the artwork he is creating and be able to create that which he feels within. For the child through four years of age, his artwork should be more like a game. He can take some instruction, but he mainly needs encouragement and a sense of happiness about his work. For at this point his eye-hand coordination has not developed to the stage when he will be able to see and record shapes accurately.

Just as children are taught concepts in reading and writing, so they need to have continual classes in art. These should include crafts, drawing, and the use of various media. Children should be offered these classes from the age of three through grade school. When they enter junior high and high school, they should be able to choose the classes they wish to take.

I stress this because, when school systems wish to cut down on expenses, the first class cut is art, and the second is music and vocal instruction. Many parents who home school their children also believe that academic subjects are more important, although they may see that their children receive some music instruction such as violin or voice lessons. And if these parents have artistic talent, I am sure they pass this fervor on to their children.

Even if art is only taught one hour a week, that hour fills a gap for the students in many schools.

Children enjoy doing art. It is very important to them, for it comes from the heart. They should be complimented honestly on their work. Art assists children to have better emotional balance. It can often help them develop a purpose in life.