Share
On the left side of the drawing, a multicolored African plant blooms optimistically.
On the right, a machine gun tilts slightly toward the sky.
The artist has drawn from his own experience, as young artists are always told to do. His jungle childhood has been full of blood and chlorophyll. But he's probably squeezed a trigger more often than a leaf.
The Freedom in Creation exhibit now at Queens University can break your heart and cheer you up at the same time.
The art comes from young boys who were stolen by the Lord's Resistance Army, which has conscripted an estimated 60,000 children as laborers, sex slaves and soldiers in its 22-year war against the Ugandan government. (At the moment, uneasy peace prevails.)
Virginia-based Freedom in Creation (FIC) has helped heal the children fortunate enough to come back to their villages alive, both through practical ways (building wells for fresh water, Africans' most pressing need) and psychological ones.
The art here fills two rooms. One has black-and-white photographs by FIC founder Andrew Briggs, in which children exult in safe play or proudly fetch fresh water for homes.
The other room contains art by repatriated young soldiers. That work is unsophisticated and direct, as befits titles such as "Forced to Kill or Be Killed." You'll be struck by discrepancies between mature themes and childish styles, because the artists' ages belie the naive look of their drawings. It's as if they were trying to reclaim in their work the innocence they were deprived of long ago.
One photo of a boy drawing intently with colored chalk sits under the placard "Declared Valuable." The implication is clear: Art may be the first opportunity he's had to be fully human, to assert his right to be a kid, to safely express desires - which, in these cases, are often things as simple as an untroubled family or a tree in the yard.
Art isn't a frill to these Ugandans: It's an essential part of their spirits. Those who destroyed can now create, whether digging a well or painting a bird in flight. (You can support FIC by buying practical art from Africa - jewelry, purses, wallets - or scarves made by U.S. volunteers, either at this exhibit or through FIC.)
Americans rarely think of art in that exalted way. To us, it's often a luxury, something to be encouraged in gifted children who are going to paint or dance or compose as a serious hobby or a career. It may seem marginally relevant to the majority of busy people who run companies and households.
When schools must cut budgets, The Observer gets letters reminding us that sports are sacrosanct, while choirs are not. Sports do instill positive values - teamwork, sacrifice, diligence - when taught properly, and this shouldn't be an either-or choice. But I think it's hard for Americans to believe that the two have equal value.
The main reason to expose kids to art isn't to turn them into artists. It's to show what a vast, challenging, beautiful and sometimes problematic world lies beyond their horizons.
Folks bewitched by the music of Beethoven or Charlie Parker or Rodgers and Hammerstein better understand the richness and diversity of life. So do those who fall under the spell of paintings by Rembrandt or Renoir or Rockwell.
Too many kids grow up near the chatter of bullets, even in the United States. One trip to a museum or one school visit by an orchestra won't eradicate their pain and fear. But the ones who pick up paintbrushes and guitars are less likely to find joy by picking up a gun.
