Inner Child Art
I’ve been making art with my radiant little 5-year-old niece and let me tell you… she is a master teacher in the art of joy. Sitting side by side at my art table (right in the heart of my bedroom), she invites me into her world of wonder—where paint goes wherever it pleases, stories bloom like wildflowers, and anything can become something magical. We build blanket forts, gather treasures from outside in the yard, and bring them inside to turn into messy, glorious creations. The other day she exclaimed, “I love art!”—and I said, “Me too!”
Alongside this play, I’ve also been journeying tenderly into my own inner world—doing deep inner child healing for many years now. Slowly, I’ve been meeting the younger parts of me that were once silenced, hidden, or simply not ready to speak. And you know what I’m finding? They love to make art too. Art has become a sacred doorway—a loving invitation—for these younger selves to sit down with me and whisper (or sometimes shout) what they’re feeling, what they’re longing for, what they remember.
These parts of me don’t want fancy tools—they want sparkly watercolor paints, stencils and markers, glue sticks and glitter, scissors and songs. They want to sing out loud to the music they love, to move their bodies with joy, to feel wild and seen, held, listened to and completely FREE to be themselves. And as I honor them and follow their lead, I feel something soft and powerful unfurling inside me…a deep remembering, an integrating of these parts of me, I feel like a stitched quilt made with once lost pieces of beautiful fabrics that hold so many layers of story and emotion within them. I feel more like ME.
After a long, two-year pause from making visual art, this return feels like a blooming. A reawakening. A returning to who I truly am.
Below, you’ll find some of the pieces I’ve co-created with my niece—and others that have emerged from sacred time spent with my own inner child. I hope you enjoy looking at them and may they spark your own connection to your inner child.
