Giant Rubber Duckie Floats Down A River in France

I've love seeing and reading about quirky news items, and this giant rubber duckie floating down the Loire River in France, which was featured recently on Inhabitat, made me smile. There are more fun photographs of the duckie en route on artist/creator Florentijn Hofman's website here.

Hofman's duck was created to bring people together to witness art for art's sake, with no connotations or underlying messages. This is especially timely for me because for the past several months, I have been touring public schools, the majority of which are completely lacking in art programs, and don't include any kind of student creativity in the curriculum. Most don't have school libraries anymore either, due to budget cuts and the inability to afford a librarian.

Basically, I admire the artists of yesterday and today so very much, and it's one of my greatest hopes that our children will be encouraged to flourish and express themselves artistically, in a world that is increasingly obsessed with marginalizing the arts and measuring intellect via rigorous academic testing. Engaging in the arts in school has become a luxury, when in essence, it should be one of the core bases for learning and to positively influence the development of a child.

Check out this awesome gigantic hand-knit bunny in the Italian Alps I wrote about on Inhabitots for more larger than life artistic impressions!