This weekend we went to the SoNo Arts Celebration in South Norwalk, CT. Walking along Norwalk’s historic waterfront, we took in artist’s booths, stage performances,a puppet parade, and a full street of children’s activities, including the “Children’s Art Playground.”

I have blogged before about the connection that can be made between art and language. Yes, we use two different sides of our brain to process visual and verbal stimuli, but art can stimulate language when we find out the story behind the work. Certainly the children’s area with murals to add to and masterpieces to create are fun, but think what a child can learn from hearing the story behind the art in the booths–from Nancy Richardson’s pillows with beautiful shells sewn to them (ask her how she drills the holes in the shells to attach them or where she gets her shells, to Karen Ford’s Ceramics displaying beautiful one of a kind Asian-inspired, functional porcelain serving dishes with inlaid glass, to Thomas Reilly‘s bigger than life oil paintings of pencils and Cabell Molina’s abstract pastel landscapes created by moving the pastels with her fingers. I met a talented gentleman from South Carolina who developed his large black and white photos the old fashioned way in a dark room. Did I say he didn’t use a computer to create his art?

Getting your child interested in art has many benefits, creative and otherwise. Always read about the illustrator on the back flap of a picture book you are reading. Most have amazing stories to tell that communicate who they are through their art.