Turning Dreams to Art : Children are inspired by real and imaginary worlds in works at CSUN gallery.

Edie Pistolesi teaches her students how to teach art to children. Having taught for years in inner-city schools, she has seen the benefits of providing art activities for children in their elementary school curriculum.

Drawing, says Pistolesi, a Cal State Northridge assistant professor, “is really their first language. They express their world through images. What they can’t express in words, they can express in pictures in a very complex and sophisticated way.”

Binney & Smith, the company that has been manufacturing Crayola crayons since 1903, has also recognized the significance of art in elementary school curricula. In 1984, it established the “Crayola Dream-Makers” program to aid art and general education teachers in providing hands-on art activities for children in kindergarten through sixth grade throughout North America.

Student artworks inspired by “Dream-Makers” lessons are considered by a panel of art educators for inclusion in traveling exhibitions. The company offers grants to universities to present these shows.

Pistolesi jumped at the chance for CSUN to apply for a grant. The university was chosen as the winter site for the 1993-94 “Western Regional Dream-Makers Show.”

Eighty artworks by children from nine Western states, Guam and Western Canada are on view in CSUN’s main art gallery. Matted, framed and hung at eye levels appropriate for children, these delightfully colorful images reflect this year’s Dream-Makers theme, “Time Traveling.” A “Dream Statement” by the artist accompanies each work.

In their works, children ventured into real and imaginary worlds of the past, present and future, considering everything from pollution, the extinction of animals and the destruction of the rain forest to art history and the need to have friends. Even the youngest participants have drawn some finely detailed, nicely composed images.

“If you give them fine-pointed materials, they paint exquisite, detailed pictures,” Pistolesi said. “If you give kids big, fat brushes and thick gooey paint, they would paint very large simple images, and so would you.”

Pearl Garcia, an 8-year-old third-grader from Pico Rivera, used tempera to paint “Enjoy the Show,” her homage to Toulouse-Lautrec. “My picture is about going to the show. I traveled to the past to see Toulouse-Lautrec and how he did his painting,” she writes in her statement.

Erin Bergh-Pollock, a 10-year-old fifth-grader from Anchorage, Alaska, selected watercolors, ink markers, paint and oil pastels to create a “Forest of Magic” where “children can go when life is treating them bad,” she writes. Miguel Robles of Los Angeles, also 10, depicts a city street scene where someone is “Making a Friend.” “We all need friends to survive all the time,” he says.

Robert Wright, 8, of San Diego, shows his concern for “Macaws” in his delineated vision of the bird. “The macaws are losing their homes. Save the jungle for these special birds, before they all die out,” he pleads.

On a lighter note, 10-year-old Alex Burns of Vancouver, British Columbia, created the vibrant “Funny Clown.” “My picture is traveling to the park and I saw people with big red noses because it’s cold season and they have been blowing their noses,” he informs viewers.

“There’s always content in children’s art. They tell you something,” Pistolesi said. “Every one of these children started out with a blank piece of paper and had to make all kinds of critical decisions, including what materials to use. Art nurtures a way of thinking that you don’t get any other place.”

Sharing space in the gallery with the “Dream-Makers” pictures is a “Time-Traveling Zone,” a work space for making art that is open to all children who come to the gallery. Drawings by students from Calahan Street, Encino, Balboa and Wonderland Avenue elementary schools are already on view. Pictures drawn there will be added to the display.

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Crayola Dream-Makers.”

Location: CSUN Art Galleries, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge.

Hours: Noon to 4 p.m. Mondays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays through Dec. 17 and again Jan. 3-14. Closed Dec. 18 through Jan. 2.

Price: Free. Parking is $1.75 in student lots.

Call: (818) 885-2226.