The paper petroglyph idea all started while scrambling to prepare an art lesson for 8-10 year olds. I had had these same kids since they were 6 years old, so consequently, 50 new ideas later, I still needed a new 51st one! I thought about the idea of doing a lot of different textured rubbings on a piece of paper, but I was worried that parents might say "What? that's kindergarten stuff. Not teaching any technical skills?" So, I quickly threw in the idea that something realistic (an image of a rhinoceros for example - kids love animals) would have to be drawn (I always gave a how-to draw-it demonstration). After that, I prepared a mock-up of what the realistic image might look like. But, instead of using the rhino as the realistic image in which to integrate with the rubbings, I casually took a life-size, profile-silhouette (from an earlier kid project) and began to fill that in with textures. Wow! An Arcimboldo-like image was developing and something ancient, Egyptian tomb-like, and fleetingly iconic, suggesting a kind of commemorative, began enlivening the inanimate stillness of the drawn surface! How could I harness these images.

This image shows a child's profile-silhouette, heavily textured. It's entitled "Familial Circuitry".