A NURSERY SCHOOL ART CLASS OF 1967

Orange Crayon: I heard they're making a masterpiece.

Purple Crayon: Why do you bother? That's grown-up stuff.

Orange: Oh please! Don't tell me you never wanted to draw a something worthy of a big art exhibition.

Purple: Anything a child draws from his imagination is a masterpiece.

Orange: But they lose our work and become embarrassed of us when they get older. I want my work to be immortalized.

Purple: Well that kind of work only appeals to thick-headed art critics.

***
Charcoal: Hey! What do you think you're doing here?

Orange: I wanted to be a part of the masterpiece.

Charcoal: The artist is doing a sketch. There's no place for colors here. Certainly not a tacky-bright one like you.

Orange: But the world is in color! We dream in color! Isn't art about all the beauty there is and could be?

Charcoal: You don't know it yet, but feelings are too often black and gray.

Orange: It doesn't have to be like that! I can be the sunshine in that gray world.

Charcoal: You know nothing about art. This canvas is not for you.

Orange: Who is it for?

Charcoal: Not you. Go back to create meaningless doodles in the most inappropriate places, being chewed on and broken by toddlers. You can't create art.

Orange: What kind of twisted view of art asserts feelings are black and gray?

Charcoal: Well what do you feel now?

***
Orange was busy next morning in the nursery school. Little Julian painted Lucy O'Donnell with Orange. His father, John, a grown-up loved the painting. He even showed it to his friend, Paul (“Nice guy”, Orange thought “Talks to friends about art”). Paul liked it too, but they started taking about writing a song. Well, you can't see music. Apparently little Julian's crayon painting can't be framed and displayed at an enormous art gallery to awe people.

Orange thought grown-up John forgot about the insignificant nursery-school painting his son Julian made with her. She never got to thank John. Although he made it possible for to hear Orange's painting as he sang the words, “Picture yourself in a boat on a river…”