Art Jamming

For her birthday, Yan received the very thoughtful gift of the Artjam... for four! So, on one beautiful Sunday afternoon, Yan, Ailin, Hoi Ying, and I headed to TST for a creative experience.

I didn't have much time beforehand to plan out my masterpiece. So I went with a replication of a picture I took in White Sands, New Mexico. I'm glad I had decided this ahead of time, because our time slot at the studio was only 2 hours and it can be pretty stressful!

To add to the stress, our time slot coincided with some children's group... and you know how I feel about those little demons. The space was small, the aprons were weird and kept sliding off, and we really didn't have any surface area to spread out our paints and brushes. Despite all these challenges, the jam of art was such a wonderful experience.

I'm amazed at how fabulous all the paintings turned out to be. It felt good to mix colors, play with texture, transform an empty canvas. But I'm afraid these two hours in the artjamming studio fed us a false sense of artistic ability. It won't stop me from coming back though!

While the experience would have been more pleasant for me without a million little kiddos running around, I'm glad these kids are lucky enough to get the chance to do something fun and creative. These kids grow up in tight quarters and do not have to space to house piles and piles of toys, crayons, and all the things that American kids can have. There's no room to finger paint or make a mess, there's no back yard to hose them down. There's no Michael's or Joann's or Target to purchase fun crafty stuff, and the few crafty things available here are not cheap.

I read an article a while back about how HK is really behind in the art scene, especially in comparison to other big cities. And while this may be due to a different set of priorities (make money not art) or a different way of thinking (in the box not creatively), maybe there's just no room to be creative here.