If you are a regular reader of my blog, you have heard of the most famous artist in my life, Leo LeBlanc. He is only 4 years old, but as my dad (an artist himself) told me “If only Van Gogh’s mother had saved all his drawings.” So my daughter Maggie started a shared album on her phone. While he was living, my father took delight in seeing Leo’s art pop up on his phone. He often called me just to talk about it.
Last year, Leo was drawing, as he still does now, with a single marker, filling the page with a line design. Here is a sample of a piece from September 27, 2021 when he wasn’t quite 3 yet.
Now that Leo is four, he is able to speak what his imagination tells him he has drawn. Yesterday after his first soccer game of the season where he spent most of the time on the sidelines eating Goldfish, I took the opportunity to interview him as he was drawing. To me, his grandmother, this is priceless. You will hear his younger sister, Stella in the background. She is saying “I want to sit on you, Mamere.”
M: Hey, Leo LeBlanc, you just made a beautiful piece of art. Could you tell me about it?
L: It’s a boat carrying a parachute right here that carries a coconut.
M: Wow! So is the coconut attached to the boat or the parachute?
L: The parachute is connected to both.
M: To both of them?
L: Like, connected to here, here, here, here, here, here…
L: That’s all part of the parachute.
M: Okay. All right.So what is this?
L: The coconut.
M: And what is this right here?
L: The star on the web.
M: The star on the web?
L: I’m about to draw the web. I just showed the web because I’m going to draw it. I’m not building another coconut. It’s just how it lives like this.
M: What did you just draw?
L: Zigzag.
M: That goes on the boat?
L: Zigzag. A motor has to go. It’s tipping over because it’s a motor boat. Does this look like a motor?
M: It sure does.
L: The tip goes in the water, leans back, they pull the handle, and it goes in the water.They start moving on the steering wheel, and it goes. It tips over.
M: Yeah.Very nice.
L: And there’s a web right here. And the parachute has to go under the boat.This space has to go somewhere. I don’t know what’s coming. Okay, I’m not done.
M: You’re not done? Okay.Thank you very much, Leo LeBlanc.
Reflections on the Teche 