Every once in a while, I like to put room boards together for kids I’ve never met. I’ll see something, a paint swatch, a fabric or a book, it could be anything, and I start to think about a kid who has a certain vibe or personality. I think it’s amazing that you can tell so much about who a person could become, by paying attention to the clues that you are given. I’m willing to bet there are plenty of adults that you know now, who did things when they were kids that maybe didn’t make sense at the time, but now explain everything.
When I was a child, I was always painting or drawing. I remember very clearly, a day when my grandmother was over our house for a visit. I think it was about 1974; I was about three years old. She was in the living room with my parents while I sat in my room. I could see them from the doorway. I snuck over to my crayon drawer. My walls were a bright yellow…and I chose red! I started to draw these beautiful drawings on the walls.
I must have known it was wrong because I have very clear memories of sneaking over to the doorway to see if they were coming. I’m not sure why I thought I could hide something like this from my mother. Obviously the fear of being caught wasn’t enough to stop me.
When they did come in, and of course they did, my mother was very upset. My grandmother however said, “You shouldn’t be angry with her. She could be a famous artist one day.” Needless to say, 2 decades later, people were actually paying me thousands of dollars to draw on their walls.
So here is my idea. I think that once a month, I am going to pick one famous person, a musician, artist, poet or politician for example and design a presentation board for their room at the age of 13. I may never know if I am being accurate with these ideas, but I think it will be a blast. Maybe you have a kid who might like the same things. Maybe, they will see it and let us know what their real room looked like when they were a kid. Maybe, it will just be very entertaining and give us a few laughs. Let’s see what we come up with.
If you have any celebrities you would like to see me design for, send the names on over. I am all about collaboration.
