There were no crib mobiles for this artist’s children. My high wires extended from doorknob to the ceiling, until it was hard to enter the nursery. I still
share photos of these creations with my art class and talk about what they would build above a baby’s crib.
My adult children still complain about the purchase of their first beds.
Jacob only wanted a race-car bed, and my girls dreamt of a playgroundstyle
bunk bed. Unforgiven for my artistic choice, we purchased simple
beds, blank canvases. A bed is an important canvas for children’s changing
play creations. My kids transformed their faceless beds throughout their
childhoods, creating memorable play settings about which I still write and lecture.
After a day of jumping and setting up action scenes over their beds,
children are tired. Sesame Street sheets, accented by cartoon pillows, frame
little bodies in superhero pajamas. I kept my children’s sheets, sleeping
bags, and pillows, but I have built on this collection with older samples
and the latest finds in this rich visual arts history. In our classes we continue
this history by contributing our own designs of bedding to the art room.
Even superheroes need to be reassured at bedtime with a storybook.
As an avid children’s book collector, I was eager to share my favorite
American artists with my kids. The pace of the art appreciation lesson was
slower than I envisioned in the syllabus, since my children wanted to see
the same book over and over again until they memorized it.
Recalling beds and bedtimes in the art class brings back cherished
memories for kids of any age. Art lessons need to flow from such warm
feelings shared with children who are excited to respond with their own
stories and creative thoughts.
Bed Transformations
Toys had to be removed from Jacob’s bed before he went to sleep. Considering
the bed had already been a racetrack, a schoolroom, and the site of
the Battle for Beanbag Mountain, clearing it was not a small task. We negotiated
about leaving the insulation-board side of his fort in place, and of
course the playground beneath the bed remained undisturbed. Action figures
under the bed would sleep standing up, waiting for the morning stage
call. When Jacob couldn’t sleep, you could see his lighted slippers illuminating
a night game under the bed.
One day our blue camping tent soared above Jacob’s bed. Inside it had
comfortable accommodations, snacks, toys, and a portable television. One
way children look at their beds is as houses. Bed designs are architectural
and interior-design solutions that use objects gathered in the home. While
children entertain themselves on their beds, they also dream of designs
for privacy and beds that are homes with all amenities for eating and
entertainment.
Our children turned their beds into forts when they were punished or
angry with us. The bed became a place of resistance, their protected kingdom.
Bed forts are also children’s safe havens against unfriendly monsters
and bad dreams.
In the art class, we use blankets, sheets, and pillows in a myriad of
folds, clever dips, and peaks to create changing terrains and mixed landscapes
on imaginary beds. In different setups, a bed becomes a place for
landscape artists to arrange populations of figures and vehicles. Accomplished
bed artists shape their linens to recreate the Tour de France with
difficult passages for riding through the folds of sheets. In the steep hills
of a sleeping bag, rock climbing and off-road events are featured. In a
space theme, over pillow clearings, children land slippers converted into
rockets.
Conceptions of the bed as a house, a protected domain, or a changeable
landscape can be applied to art room plays. On sheets, blankets, sleeping
bags, and pillows set out on my art room floor, children create bed
setups accompanied by great performance art and storytelling. Ask children
about their thoughts regarding an ideal bed and be ready to take notes
on the extraordinary creations and features they share:
I want a bed with more cup holders than our car, a built-in fridge,
and snack table.
A drink and candy dispenser would be good for my bed.
My bed is a great hiding place, but it needs safe and secret
compartments.
I would buy a bed that has surround-sound speakers, a little drawer
for my Gameboy cartridges, and a headboard that is the screen.
As children, we may share a room with a sibling, but our bed is the one
place that is ours alone. It is our creative playground, a place to dream, the
place to go for comfort. Children see their bed as a flying machine or a race
car because they want it to take them to exciting places to have new adven
tures, very much the way they use art making. The bed becomes an extension
of children’s art—a supportive easel, a fantasy machine, and a natural
place for art making. As adults we may not make forts underneath our beds,
but we love to decorate them with beautiful sheets and pillowcases.
Bed artists go through many mattresses, each jump-tested upon arrival.
In spite of parental urging not to jump, to keep the bed clean and
uncluttered, it is the children who ultimately decide the uses of their bed.
Jumping on one’s bed demonstrates ownership of the place and sovereignty
over what will be created on it. Bed art is important for young artists to
assume independent responsibility over other art canvases. Experiences
of playing in and around a bed are also beneficial because they promote a
lively questioning of what a bed can be. Children who are allowed to play
on their beds have impressive visions beyond traditional beds.
Small Beds
Children know who need beds, and they bring their bedless individuals
to our art class. Teddy bears and blue monsters determine the features and
scale of fantasy bed constructions. My college students like to tell stories
about the play beds of their youth as the children create beds fit for our
guests:
• For a spotted dog, a bed is designed from a strawberry crate with a
bubble-wrap quilt. The space beneath the bed has drapes for the
beloved toy puppy.
• Foil wrapped heat tiles cover a Smurf’s bed, created for sleeping and
space dreams. The cylindrical bed has an open back to climb in, and
interior amenities like a sponge mattress for comfort in space travel.
• A doll rests inside a see-through high-heeled shoe. Golden bells,
perhaps for room service, and a miniature Cracker Jack–prize phone
are part of this bed’s features. A decorated shoe box is fitted with a
handle to use as a travel case for the doll and its bed.
• Inside a darkened box conducive to sleeping, a bird’s nest made
from rubber bands and tape is suspended by springs to the sides of
the box. This unusual, nest-styled bed was created for a squeaky
yellow Tweety toy. The nest-style bed was padded with cut leaves,
and the interior of the box was decorated by painted branches.
Sleep Art
Children’s dreams of giants, closet monsters, attic threats, or being kidnapped
are reinforced by traditional bedtime stories and television. When
children arrive at school, their napping days are over, but their sleep
concerns—scary dreams and vivid nighttime fantasies—are freshly recounted
in words and art. We spread fabrics and stuffed paper pillows on
the art room floor as make-believe sleeping bags and dream catchers. Children
find it amusing to nap in the art class, yet their make-believe naps
collect interesting images on pillows, sheets, or dream notebooks. My collection
of vintage night-lights, unusual slippers, and historic doll beds and
doll quilts are used not only to establish a mood, but also to inspire the
students with great American sleep art works.
Read More : Child Teaching : Children’s Rooms as Art Studios
