When the pandemic hit and the world shut down in March of 2020, I stayed home with my two boys aged four months and three years. My photography jobs were canceled, and I had to find new and creative ways to entertain my kids at home. After a month or so, on a particularly exhausting day, I rolled out one of my 4.5 foot white photo backdrops about 12 feet long, for my three-year-old to draw on. We got markers and paint and crayons and I watched him. Being the three-year-old he was, he started painting his arms and legs and looked at me for approval. Too exhausted to argue, I just let him. I turned on some Led Zeppelin, and he ended up dumping paint all over the paper, using his feet and hands to rub it in and dance to the music. He had the best time. I was having fun too, and when we were done, I asked him to lay on top of it and take a picture. He asked to paint the next day and I decided to see if new music would change his style. I didn’t help him, except by opening the jars. Needless to say, I bought a lot of washable paint.
We were both having a blast, and photographing him painting was giving me a much-needed creative outlet. He was even learning that you can combine colors to make other colors. Every day I chose a new genre of music to play for him, and no technique was off limits. It was a no, “no” zone, during a time where he desperately needed play, attention and connection. I loved experiencing how his brain worked—making up stories with the paint and coloring himself as different characters, or imagining himself ice skating on the paper. I loved his palette choices, and how the paintings would truly match the moods of the music.
It became our routine to have him paint while his brother napped. It was our time together, just him and I. When he was finished, I would carry him upstairs to the tub for a popsicle bath. I saved these 12-foot long paintings and photographed them in my studio that summer.
Looking back, I remember this as the project that saved my sanity. The joy we shared and purpose it gave me was something I needed so badly during an incredibly difficult and melancholy time. I am so grateful for these memories, and I will never forget them.
All paintings made by Rowan Eliot Sievert between April 2020 and October 2020. Photographed by Stephanie Bassos Sievert.
