Sorting Through Saved Art

I was sifting through the "Saved Art" cubby, the sole place where Ana gets to put the art work, poems, cards, origami and such paper crafts, fabric crafts etc. that she creates, until I get a chance to look at them and appreciate them, and then figure out what to do with them.


Of course, she also has various folders and binders to save her specific works - like Dictionary Research, Animal Research, Story Ideas, Found Objects and such.

We periodically rummage through it, as the cubby gets filled up often enough, to figure out which ones to really keep, and recycle the others as best as we can - to take stock and get organized.

Usually, I let Ana decide which ones she really wants to keep and which ones she is not keen enough to hold on to. She has been pretty good about it. Better than me, as I find it hard to part with some of the beautiful things that the little hands made at 3, 4, 5, and 6 years old.

Anyway, it's that time again, and we've started this process... it might take us a few days to sleep on it and decide which ones will be added to the previously retained works and which ones will be re-used, re-purposed, recycled or simply tossed away...

And, as she grows older, am sure she'll arrive at a system that is comfortable for her. And, maybe she won't have time to generate as much "extra" stuff that is outside of school work. And that's just fine.

Meanwhile, I found a book she made when she was 5 which I don't think I'll have the heart to throw away. It was during the Winter Break of 2010. I remember helping her with some spelling for this book because she was particular about doing it right rather than the phonetic way in which she had been spelling until then.

And also came across scrap pages of art she did when she was studying Georgia O'Keeffe and other artists. I liked the picture-in-picture thing she did. Looks like the Nina Laden's When Pigasso met Mootisse book was an inspiration as well.