When Clara Jane isn’t pestering Santa for her own Barbie army, she’s been begging for art supplies. Not that she doesn’t have a houseful of art supplies. Just about every surface in our house has a supply of markers, crayons, glue, scissors, paper and stickers should any creative emergencies arise. Which they do. Often. She wants to be an artist, she says, which means lots of practice.

I don’t mind this one single bit at all. Being a little on the creative side myself, I love that we share this trait. Brian thinks we’re a little whacked. Rather, he doesn’t remember do imaginative, creative stuff. That’s all I did and to an extent, still do.

Today we hit the Action/Abstraction: Pollack, de Kooning, and American Art 1940-1976 exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum with Kate and her little friend Esther. Before hitting the exhibit, we did a study in contrasts:

I’ll bet you can accurately pick which child will wind up rolling on the floor at the museum snack bar before the day’s out!

(That would be mine.)

As for the exhibit itself, the girls were fantastic. This was Clara Jane’s first big art exhibit and she was entranced from the beginning. It started with two videos, one of Jackson Pollock working on one of his splatter pieces, the other of Willem de Koonig’s more traditional brush-on-canvas precision. To my surprise, Clara Jane wasn’t impressed with the splattering and went straight for the more intricate works.

Kate brought markers, crayons, and little sketchpads for all of us. After several rooms of the exhibit, Clara Jane parked herself in front of Barnett Newman’s “Hot and White”. I mean, I can see how this would capture the imagination of the art-inclined four-year-old:

Not that I don’t appreciate minimalism. I just thought Clara Jane would sprint past the solid-colored canvases in order to study how to best fling paint on my walls.

It took quite awhile, but here’s her creation:

That’s Da Vinci’s Jesus from “The Last Supper” in the bottom corner. I’m not sure what this means. I’m going with the interpretation that Clara Jane needed a convenient place to stick her Jesus sticker.

The girls spent close to two hours in the exhibit, studying the art, drawing, going nuts in the interactive portion where they got to write on walls with chalk and play with room-sized magnetic poetry. Okay, I was the one going nuts in the magnetic poetry room. It took some serious rearranging for me to create “Free! Balling Hockey Momotorhead”. As hard as I worked on that, Clara Jane walked in and, with just as much rearranging and angst, created “speed sunblockmare” and “pre-nupo green”. Then she asked me what a pre-nupo is.

After the exhibit we had a snack, and Clara Jane took some photos:

We call this, “Kate and Mom, Viewed From the Floor”

This one is “Kate-Assisted Arm’s Length Self-Portrait With Arty New Friend”.

Later tonight, Clara Jane discovered R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine), which quite possibly might be THE BEST SONG SHE’S EVER HEARD, EVER! I ran it through the Genius to see what else is going to be on Clara Jane’s playlist when she’s wearing her black kohl eyeliner and my then-vintage clunky black Mary Janes in art school in 15 years. Or 20 years ago if she chooses to attend school via time machine.

1. It’s the End of the World as We Know It… – R.E.M.
2. Mysterious Ways -U2
3. Rock the Casbah – The Clash
4. Jeremy – Pearl Jam
5. West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys
6. I’m on Fire – Bruce Springsteen
7. Man on the Moon – R.E.M.
8. Changes – David Bowie
9. Werewolves of London – Warren Zevon
10. New Year’s Day – U2
11. Southern Man – Neil Young
12. Heart-Shaped Box – Nirvana
13. Whip It – Devo
14. Radio Free Europe – R.E.M.
15. Buddy Holly – Weezer