Long ago, when I asked my 5-year-old son what he was painting, he said, “The whole world.” And he was. He was expressing his inner experience of home, neighborhood and school. But a globular globe crammed with images looked different than his other pictures. It was suspended on the page, somewhat like the astonishing photos we were seeing at the time taken by astronauts from space.

The image of our shining, blue planet suspended in a dark sky stirred us all. And my son quietly internalized this new Earth image as his. He filled his planet Earth with a child’s house, trees, parents, neighbor kids, cats, Matchbox Cars and a boy playing with Legos. “I’m painting the world.” Indeed.

J. Reynolds