Art History

My son is a genius. Now I know what your thinking and I'm sure most moms have similar opinions in regards to their own children, but this is truly a legitimate proclamation. You''ll soon see what I'm talking about.

One of our favorite "mother & son" activities is art. I absolutely love that my son shares my artistic passions. Lately he has been struggling to find direction in his art, but last week as we were brainstorming, he had his genius idea. He said "Mom, I think it would be cool to do an art project for every era in history." Now tell me that isn't a splendid idea! What a great way to learn, hands on, about art history. We will choose an era, research types of art from that time period and recreate it. See, I told you it was brilliant.

I asked what era we should start with and naturally he said, "I think we should start at the beginning." I have to say I wasn't tremendously excited about Prehistoric Art, but what an adventure it turned out to be. I told my husband about our new project and much to my surprise he had the perfect research field trip idea. Apparently we are lucky enough to have a large collection of 12,000 year old petroglyphs about an hour South of our home. Perfect!

Last weekend we headed out on our first research expedition. The weather was an ideal 65 and sunny. According to a website we found on the area, a 3 mile hike along the Snake River would bring us to a collection of boulders adorned with ancient petroglyphs.

After 5 and a half miles of hiking (hmmm) we finally found the boulders in question. At first I didn't see the petroglyphs. I was looking closely at a large boulder, not seeing anything, when my husband said "You have to step back." All of a sudden they just appeared. Being able to see and touch something so ancient was surreal. What did they mean? What were the people like that made them? Was this home to a tribe or some sacred location?  It was fun to surmise the possibilities. No matter what the reasons, just like me, they were driven to create.

After taking many reference photos, we each picked a rock that would be suitable for petroglyph replication (and easy transport). As often happens during extended bouts of physical activity, our hike back was filled with talk of what we should eat for dinner. My son's second genius idea was about to be born. "Why don't we add food to our research of each time period?" he says. Now we're talking. What better food to accompany Prehistoric Art than bison. Being absolutely famished after an 11+ mile hike we all agreed that bison jerky would take to long, but luckily we have a great local burger joint with bison burgers on the menu. A great end to a great day.

It turns out we will shortly be heading on a second petroglyph expedition. Apparently the hike really is 3 miles if you start from the right spot. Oops! We only saw a small fraction of what's really out there. Another adventure awaits. I guess it will give me some time to make that jerky.

Kristen -