Making Space for Play: Andrew Alba Lets Kids Take the Lead

When Salt Lake City artist Andrew Alba was tasked with curating a show for the Craft Lake City Contemporary Gallery, he opted to exhibit some unexpected illustrators. Rather than oversee a group show of established artists, Alba wanted to showcase local children’s art, which he maintains is historically underappreciated. “I think all painters want to return to a type of childlike mark-making. I don’t want to be childish, but I do want to be childlike,” Alba says. “I want to approach a painting like it’s the first painting I’ve ever done.” What better way to capture that childlike spirit than by recruiting the youth to get creative?

“I think all painters want to return to a type of childlike mark-making”

The plan is simple but ambitious: Alba will station canvas panels in several locations around the city, providing drawing materials like crayons, markers and even a bit of paint at each. It may sound like a recipe for chaos, but that’s actually the goal: “I want the finished pieces to be drawn over and over and over again, to look like a train that’s had graffiti on it for the last 30 years or like a junior high desk that keeps getting scratched in and drawn on.”

In an effort to capture different parts of the community, the panels will also move around the city, intermingling drawings from the east side with those from the west. Alba plans to make some plaster sculptures for the kids to work on as well. So far, he has secured spots for the panels at Edison Elementary, UMOCA and Mochi Kids, with more locations incoming. Alba will also be hosting a few events at his own studio, providing healthy snacks, artistic materials and a space to truly inspire play – something Alba insists is essential to the creative process.

As far as creative direction goes, that’s primarily left up to the children. Materials will be similar, but some panels will feature darker, cooler hues, while others will be a bit warmer and brighter. The kids might be asked to draw their best friend or their favorite animal, but at the end of the day, Alba just wants to see how they “translate their feelings” onto the panels.

“I don’t want to be childish, but I do want to be childlike”

For Alba, this curation is personal. As a father of two and caretaker of many, “there’s always just kids in and out of [my] studio, on the trampoline, all of these things. But they always bust in here and start drawing, working on things.” This work is important, but Alba states that “the general public or academics or art lovers don’t really take what kids do seriously.” With this show, Alba hopes to turn this notion on its head. By formally framing and showcasing their work, he hopes “people might actually stop and look at them more seriously and see how these little artists are making marks and how all these professional artists, a lot of the time, are just trying to rip them off.”

This will be Alba’s first curated gallery of work that is not his own. When asked how he anticipates this will differ from previous installations, the idea of control and/or lack of it came up. “In my everyday life, I love control — with dishes, tidiness, etc. — but with art, I don’t want to control it. I’ve always thought of it as growing a garden. I just want to give it sun and water, and it’s gonna grow into its own thing.”

The show will open at the Craft Lake City Contemporary Gallery on Nov. 20. To keep up with this project and Alba himself, follow his Instagram @andrew.alba or visit his website andrew-alba.com.

Read other artist interviews from SLUG:
“Growth Requires Sacrifice:” Bianca Velasquez’s “Prescribed Burn”
Communal Grief and Joy in Trying Times: Molly Heller’s Story of Curation

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