As a child, a new box of crayons made me so happy. My mother would tease that it’s all she needed to keep me occupied. Later, as an adult, while teaching English in a preschool my first year in South Korea, I would tell my 5-year-old students that they had to color the entire page before it could be considered finished. Mostly to occupy the designated art requirement of their English-based curriculum.
It was during this time that I noticed the Korean crayons were quite different than the American crayons. The colors didn’t feel as vivid. There weren’t (at least to my knowledge, in 2008) as many different ‘boxes’ or packages you could buy. I also, again, at the time, felt as though ‘creatives’ in Korea were outliers. How would the Korean crayons compare to the American crayons? Is there a correlation between the boxes of crayons and the creatives in each country? Is this a complete stretch to even consider there could be?
Curious what a box of crayons would look like if utilized in a way that wasn’t the typical coloring, I began melting and splattering crayons in boxes of various amounts to see how the colors interacted with each other and if one particular box - or number of crayons - was preferred over another. (Box of 48 from The United States continues to be my favorite for both coloring and melting.)
While traveling through other countries, I wondered how their crayons would compare. I began collecting crayons (when I was able to find them) from each country I visited. Upon my return to The United States, boxes and packages from a trip around the world sat unopened in the back of a closet while I readjusted to my native country after nearly a decade abroad and adjusted to a new city (New York) and career.
At the onset of COVID-19, while my family stayed home, I happily unearthed the crayons from the closet to revisit and finish the stalled project. Now, with two young sons to care for, I began to look at this project through the additional lens of a mother. During the early days of the pandemic, we would do whatever we could to occupy his time spent largely confined at home. And as he still remains unvaccinated, we often remain home cautious of spikes (and meltdowns over continued mask wearing). Yet, my son continues to gravitate towards every box of crayons, just as I had as a child. While I revisit each country through a souvenir box of crayons, it’s hard not to think about all of the other mothers around the world doing what they can to keep their children occupied and safe - and maybe, hopefully, artistically engaged at the same time.
