Is It Doodling At Church...Or Graffiti?

Last Sunday, while at church, I looked over and noticed a kid start to draw on a chalkboard next to where he sat. I didn't know what he was drawing, but I soon found out. When he took his hand away from his little doodle, I saw it was the logo for my alma mater. 

Bright kid.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the culture, to some this kid's drawing represents pure evil. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh. Then again, the way some people look at things, yes...to them, it's pure evil. You see, our religion has a church-owned university, several, in fact, but the biggest is Brigham Young University. 

This boy drew the drum and feather logo for the University of Utah.

Both school were founded by Brigham Young. Both schools have a majority of Mormon students. Both schools have good reputations as quality schools for higher education. There are other similarities, I'm sure, but for many, the two schools are very very different. They (sometimes...) compete for sport supremacy and bragging rights. And the fact that this kid drew the logo for the school not owned by the church during a church meeting makes someone watching either smile, or want to go over and erase the doodle forever. 

I'm probably oversimplifying things. It's likely most people were in neither camps and didn't even see the drawing. But to those of us who did notice and who have clearly chosen a side in this holy war, it was like seeing a gang sign, or a graffiti tag in your part of town.

7-Year Old Art (The Artist, Not The Art...)

 Oh, What Do You Do In Sacrament Meeting...

Art...it was one of the breakthroughs that happened to our youngest son many years ago. We found when we put a piece of paper in front of him around age 2 or 3, he calmed down and began drawing. It was amazing. Of course, we thought he was the next Monet and we even bought one of those multi-colored easels that look so cool at Kids R Us, but are ignored once they're home and put together. He did use it, but not very much.

For the past two weeks we decided to have him bring crayons and paper to church to keep him busy during Sacrament meeting. Here's this afternoon's output (he can be very prolific).

I asked my son about the pictures (you know, to get the artist's perspective...) and here's what he told me.

Basically, all the pictures (or most of them, anyway...) deal with a house and firefighters. I'm sure I didn't need to tell you this for the genius of the art is evident, but I thought I would just in case... In this picture (immediately above) you'll see a firefighter (bottom-lower, just right of center). The lines are lines of water.

In the second picture, we find ourselves in the bedroom. That thing lying near the bottom of the page is a sleeping child. To the child's left, a brave firefighter shoots a jet of water up and to the left to put out the flaming wall of fire and saving the sleeping child below.

Next, we're in the living room. Why is there so much blue on the ceiling of the living room? I asked the artist the same thing. I was told the blue on the ceiling is all the water from the bedroom (apparently, the bedroom is directly above the living room...).

Here we see the kitchen surrounded by flames. There's a helpless family member in the lower left on the page. Thankfully, a brave firefighter attacks the fire from the bottom right. Just witnessing the jet of water shooting to the heart of the inferno makes my little parent heart sing.

I asked the artist what this was...a barbecue, a tent, a hanging string of lights, perhaps? "No," he said. "That's a roller coaster." Why, naturally... (and for the record, we have no roller coaster at our house).

Apparently, the "giant ride" theme continued. What you see before you is a huge slide, but the slide is on fire (I guess you can mix artistic themes...). There's a child atop the huge slide. This same child is also seen at the bottom of the slide where a valiant firefighter sames the child from the boiling lava field below. How heroic!

This last rendering shows us many things. It is, again, another slide drawing. There are three firefighters in the picture. The upper left civil servant is fighting the metal (?). Next to him we see a brave soul fighting electricity. And the firefighter just below and to the right of center is using his skills to put out once and for all the deadly lava field that awaits those unfortunate enough to find his/her way to the slide's end. Very dramatic... so raw... so corny... so real. I can hardly wait to see what next Sunday brings...