Kiyomi 2012: A Portrait from A Field Guide to Play

Kiyomi 2012, Digital Capture, A Portrait from the series A Field Guide to Play, © Dennis DeHart

Over the past 16 months, I have been working on the series At Play. At Play is the working title that came about spontaneously at the beginning of the project. Since its inception, I have simply employed the title to move the project forward. At Play is an umbrella title, which on one hand encompasses the very essence of the project, which is photographs of childhood play outdoors. On the other hand, the process represents a philosophical point of view which states, "as a producer of art, these images stem from serious play."

In Eric Booth's book The Everyday Work of Art (Sourcebook Inc., 1997)  he writes about two spectrums of art, with "our unheralded everyday actions comprising one end of the human spectrum of artistry; the other end the creation of objects that we readily label art." Booth goes on to give appropriate credit to master artists while acknowledging their contributions to culture. Equally, he points to the importance of a creative life, which, while different then a master artisan creating fine art objects, share many of the same innate processes and humanistic qualities. Booth's book ponders the importance of process in art and life, and relishes the innate human drive to create "metaphor, improvisation, follow impulses, make things that hold personal meaning, explore worthwhile things that others have made, and to create rituals in specials places." 

Over  the past few months I have been reviewing the project At Play, and attempting to organize, ponder, edit, and ultimately strengthen the series. Artistically, I am creating photographic objects of expression which celebrate and advocate for the importance of nature and natural play.  In addition,  I am in the processes of developing the series into an interdisciplinary book project titled A Field Guide to Play. A field guide is defined as, "a book that helps readers identify natural occurrence" and "can sometimes be hard to categorize because of its dependence on context." The new titling is an apt metaphoric expression of the photographic work and developing text. 

Fine Motor Skills

Drill, Digital Capture/Color Photography, © Dennis DeHart, 2012

There are countless ways to encourage fine motor skills in childhood play. Fine motor skills are also known as dexterity. One approach includes providing children with small, hand powered tools that can be used for drilling, pounding, pouring, digging, sorting, and sawing. This weekend our children used small hammers to pulverize red bricks (clay) that they found in the yard. After crushing the bricks, they used the clay powder and sifted the harmless matter through a strainer. The kids also used inexpensive hand drills to drive holes into the soft red brick. All these projects developed on their own accord, beyond my helping them find the tools. Given the time, space, and place, our children naturally gravitate towards this form of play. I can attribute much of this to their multiple exposures to wood working with their nana, in addition several years of early childhood Waldorf education.