Coloring Outside the Lines

WASHINGTON — Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington and Forest Whitaker are adopting some of the nation's worst-performing schools and pledging Monday to help the Obama administration turn them around by integrating arts education.

As I was kneeling over the sidewalk with chalk, I heard a faint Hello?

It was my next door neighbor Juta, who looked at me as if I had lost my mind.  And asked what I was doing.

I tried to explain to her that I wanted to blog about coloring outside the lines & that I could not find a picture, so I was chalking one on the sidewalk.

I am not sure that she does not still believe I am out of my mind.

Which doesn’t bother me, as long as she is comfortable living next door.

Because coloring outside the lines has always been important to me.

When I heard about the President’s initiative to bring the arts into schools at risk, I began to wonder who & what I would be if the arts had not been part of my public school curriculum.

I wonder if I would ever attended the symphony or the ballet or the theatre.  Not to mention the opera.  Or taken piano lessons.  Or visited an art museum.

If I ever would have painted or wanted to visit Europe’s museums or searched for a chance to see Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  

I wonder if I would have visited NY’s MOMA & weep in the Impressionist section.

Or recognize, that like Patsy Cline & Barbra Streisand, my sister sings in the middle of the note.

I do not believe that my life experience would be as rich as it has been & still is without my early exposure to the arts.  In public school.

And being allowed to color outside the lines.

Or to write.

I do believe that a nation that neglects the arts is doomed to an emptiness that will take decades to repair.

Imagine not realizing the beauty of my sister’s voice, the wonder & whimsy of a Calder mobile, the depth of a Rothko, the passion of a ballet.

Or the wonder of a little boy skipping across the back yard, singing to himself & the world.

Unfathomable.