Nathan's Cupcake

"Cupcake for Nathan" © 2010

My nephew Nathan is four years old and has a special love for cupcakes. He doesn't eat them, he just loves to carry them around and look at them. I was pondering that one day and decided to really study the essence of a cupcake to see just what Nathan was talking about… and for me, in order to connect with the essence of anything, I really need to paint it. So I painted a cupcake, and then I ate it. It was a very gratifying experience to say the least. I managed to do two of my favorite things: paint & eat. Nice. I actually painted this for Nathan so that he wouldn't have to carry around a cupcake all the time - he could just look at one on the wall when needed. But maybe I wasn't getting the whole essence of that experience. Maybe he needed to actually carry it around with him in order to connect with it. Maybe as adults we should observe children creating experiences in order to discover their own world. We could really re-learn the art of observation from all children, especially under age five…