Our Son's Gnomes and other Symbols

On the way to being dropped off at school one morning, our son found a water bottle he outgrew next to his carseat. With a sharpie in hand he began to doodle characters and symbols he’s developed over time. He draws his gnomes and a character he calls Remmie and a new figure that plays on the motif of the New Mexico Zia symbol.

There are petroglyphs out on the West Mesa minutes from our home. And the bottle designs remind me of those. There is informed speculation about the meaning of petroglyphs. Some are almost certainly sacred, some are assumed to be directional signposts. If you’ve ever spent time out on the open landscape in the high desert you know how important it is to have landmarks and pointers. The drawings done here by a twelve year old aren’t trying to be sacred. There’s no ritual attached to them and they aren’t explaining a universal truth but they are a language that has been developing in his art for a long time. And it wasn’t made for anybody else. He thought it would be fun to put some of his designs on the bottle.

His drawings are a meditation. Sometimes there’s just too much information coming at him and there’s always been too much uncertainty when you’re a kid. Drawing gives him some space from that. If we had hit a bump and his marker had scrawled badly across the bottle this post probably wouldn’t exist. That’s creativity too, the messed up efforts and thrown away attempts. But, once in a while we pickup a marker and make it all the way to where we're going and we’re happy with what we did in that brief space.