Day 132

The sky in the water at our pond.

I couldn't run today, because we are busy putting up our all-school annual art exhibition.  I took Molly for a short walk this morning before school, checked in on the bees, who are all hunkering down with this cold spell, but they buzzed satisfactorily when I put my ear to each hive.  And the meadow was full of birds and green as green can be, when it is grass-green and leaf-green and new-flower-green and even grasshopper-green, springing away from each footfall.

The exhibition is always such a lot of concentrated work, all the finishing and mounting and hanging and finding new ways to display sculptures, and then the final labeling.  And so to the 'Vernissage', the grand opening on Friday night, where a few children present short theatre pieces, and some exquisite musical pieces, and a couple of the teachers perform their sublime duo of piano and voice, and the dingy ancient gym glows with art of many colours, bedecked like an old grey elephant in India is decorated and transformed for a celebration.

So here is the self-portrait, atop the elephant of the ISB gym, all adorned with the beautiful art which my students have made all year.  It is always with a sense of enchanted discovery that I go through all the pieces to choose those that will go on exhibit.  I look at the image or sculpture and think, "Did they really do this?"  And then you mount them and put them up on the wall and they look even better!

It is interesting to note that the younger children's art seems to be more colourful, or bolder, than that of the upper school.  I suppose life is more cheerful when you are younger and more innocent.