The Dot

Last week, Willow shared Ish by Peter H. Reynolds. I wanted to share another of his books The Dot. In this book, he tells the story of Vashti, a girl who is very discouraged in her art class, something that I can relate to. The book opens with Vashti sitting in front of a blank piece of paper at the end of art class. Her teacher tells her to make a mark and in frustration, she slams her pencil to the paper to make a dot. Her very smart art teacher asks her to sign her artwork before she leaves. The next day, Vashti comes into class and sees her dot hanging on the wall in a very nice frame. She decides that she can make a better dot than that and pulls out her never-used set of watercolours and ends up making a whole series of dots. At the end, her class puts on an art show and her exhibition of dots is a huge hit. The book shows Vashti's exploration of art and different media.

I find this simple picture book very inspiring in that it shows that anything can be art and anyone can do art. As artists, we need to explore and find our passions. Everyone has something to say, it is just a matter of finding our voices.