Starry Night

One day as we were driving home from preschool, Juan asked me about the song, "Starry, Starry Night" that plays on rotation in our car. He had asked about it a couple times before, but he was still curious. So, we talked about Van Gogh and some of his paintings and I told him about the song and about "The Starry Night." He wanted me to tell him what it looked like. So I described it to him as I remembered it. We talked a lot about the colors and the swirly stars. He was very curious about the buildings and how much space they took up on the page. Finally I told him that we could look it up online when we got home. He said, "No, I think you described it well enough that I can paint it." That's when I realized that he wanted to paint his own version. When we got home we got out a real canvas and oil paints and he painted this version. He was very particular about every piece. It has become very poignant for me. Somehow, that we created this together, a perspective that only he and I shared, that he created something that I described. It is beautiful to me. Maybe the most awesome part--those vibrant red impasto details are fire-extinguishers. That is all Juan and 4 year old vision.