We had a vision for this. We asked permission ahead of time. We printed over 100 tickets. We brought posters with the words “ART SHOW” and arrows to direct the traffic. We bought balloons. We brought masking tape and poster putty; surely, masking tape and poster putty meant success. But, the vision we had for lines at the door and a big opening with us welcoming the crowd didn’t really happen. Instead, as we were still hanging up artwork, the kids trickled in earlier than they were supposed to, the staff who had accompanied them everyday were with them, and other guests only included one foster mom and one other director who brought his daughter as well. But, man, for those three guests, it was awesome.
Would it have been better had it gone as planned, if all the working staff filed through and celebrated all the beauty the children had created? Maybe. But, you know what, it didn’t matter. It looked beautiful. The look on every child’s face was beautiful. It wasn’t what we planned and I had to laugh at how very different it was from what I had planned; but, it was just perfect.
