Keeping Hold of my Mini Picassos

My children love art.  They love to create by running wild and free with their imaginations.  The paint flies, the colors mix, and a heavenly(but messy) canvas is created.  Surprisingly I am asked a lot how I get my children to like art.  Um.  I really do not know how to answer this besides giving them crayons, play doh, kid scissors, glue, construction paper, watercolors, and any other art supply I can possibly think of on an almost daily basis.  I make these supplies accessible for my children.
My belief is that each person is born with a natural talent and eye for art.  But it is society that corrects the baby that turns toddler that turns child that turns preteen that turns teen that eventually turns adult.  And it is the societys view that says the individuals form of art is wrong.  I thought that people were all their own being, their own individual.  I thought we were not like cattle and that we all had minds of our own. 
This societal view takes me back to when I took a college art class about ten years ago.  I have never took one since.  The teacher always picked and picked and picked at how I chose to create art.  At the end of the quarter, I earned a D.  It took me a while to believe in myself again after that.  It took me a while to see my art as beautiful and hold my head up high not caring what other people thought. 
This same idea goes for children.  Any age of a child needs that reassurance somewhere that their masterpiece is beyond amazing.  They need to be told that their color use is unlike anything that has ever been seen.  My children do not enjoy art simply because they do it every day.  They enjoy art because I enjoy their art with them.  That is how I get my children to enjoy using that part of their brain in creating what only they can see. 
To end, I will use a bit of humor that relates to the joys found in creating art with your child.  Today we made mini snowmen.  I laughed as my son kept stealing parts of my daughters snowmen that were already glued together.  My son would tear away the snowmens parts from my two daughters papers and then quickly paste those pieces on his own snowman.  He thought it was wonderful to be able to sneak away with other peoples art.  My daughters did not think it was as wonderful as Dylan did.  I, of course, chuckled at what was taking place.  I finally had to relocate my children to different parts of the table just as a teacher might separate best friends in a class to keep from talking.  My son vented with frustration for a moment but as soon as he held the glue in his hand again, he was calm and right back to continuing his snowman.
It was in today's art that if I was off doing something else, I would have missed out on one of lifes tiny memories.  A smile never would have been brought to my face and the polaroids of this moment wouldnt have been saved.   So I say to you, to all parents out there.  Do not mind the mess, do not mind the cleanup, enjoy the art.