Mess or Creative development?

Paper, blocks, Mecanno®, pens etc, in use, but left on the floor of the limited space created a constant impression of mess. Other items that may have been found on our floor included small character toys or other small toys we may have had. If you think about the amount of ‘bits’ that four different aged boys could have. Put it into one space and give them a couple of days. It wasn’t hard to make a ‘mess’ and have mother (teeth grinding in frustration) say “clean up this mess’. But we were so often engaged in creative building and advanced design thoughts, for which the creating of took some time, sometimes days, occasionally weeks. I can’t say I ever heard my mother say, “Please re-organise this creative centre more effectively to improve your creative interests and productivity”. No, it was always referred to simply as, ‘a mess’. And it did sometimes look bad. However I always think of a ‘mess’ as that point where in a room where many, many things are, you do not know exactly where something specific is. And I don’t simply mean hoarding. You have to be able to walk into the room (if considered a mess) and find the item exactly.

I do remember as the oldest boy in this slighted crowded condition, of trying to build a model aeroplane from a balsa wood kit. This was the older style of balsa wood model making. You had to pin the plan, which was quite large (about six A3 sized sheets) out on a board. Then you had to cut and position, by pinning, each individual part to the each specific place on the design plan. Once in the correct position and secured, you had to glue the parts to the connecting frame lengths before positioning the skins onto the plane. Prior to painting. Think how many parts. How many small pieces and how long it would take to just cut them out (and sand them smooth for a clean glue able surface).

So picture having all the small amounts and pieces of a Sopwith Camel (a world war one bi-plane) cut out, on the only desk in the room. All these pieces, on a board or, still in the box, before being pinned to the board, when there were several younger people present. Each of them showed great interest in the model making, wanting to ‘have a go’. All wanted to have a try at the cutting, or sticking together of pieces with the balsa cement, that very high acetate smelling glue which required the window to be left open, to prevent gassing all of the persons sleeping in the room. Sometimes they ‘had a go’ when I wasn’t even there. Requiring, after initially ranting and raving about interfering younger brothers, more time to repair, re cut or to carefully separate incorrectly glued pieces correctly. Lookout if the board was knocked over. A project like that required an enormous amount of time to complete and generated quite a mess and realisation that space was important to each individual.

(Continued tomorrow)