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My Daughter Crashed My Huge Charcoal Drawing, And Made It Way Better

As my daughter was nearing age 12, I started noticing subtle shifts. The stuffed animals still lived on her bed, but group chats and three-hour-long phone convos were creeping in. I kept thinking about the disappearance of childhood and what that meant for my daughter’s crazy imagination.

I wanted to hold on to her fearless creativity before the world convinced her to color inside the lines. So I invited her into my studio with a simple idea: I’d draw her in charcoal holding her favorite stuffed animal, and she could fill the background with anything she wanted—no rules, no edits, just her imagination.

She lit up instantly. While I worked on the moody, realistic portrait, she attacked the blank space like it had been waiting for her all along, filling it with splashes of neon, strange shapes, tiny creatures that only make sense if you’re twelve. Every mark she made was pure, unfiltered confidence.

I named the piece Childish because that’s exactly what I hope she never loses: the kind of childlike boldness and creativity that adults spend years trying to get back. The finished artwork is a conversation between our worlds. It is my careful shading and her unstoppable color. It is a time capsule of creativity before adolescence tries to tame it.

Now it hangs framed, under glass on a wall in a downtown art gallery…but most likely it will end up on a wall in our own home, hanging as a reminder that the best art comes from the fearless play we’re all born with. Or, as Picasso said,

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

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