In Friends Seminary's James Turrell Skyspace, Third Graders Drew Pancakes

I would have failed this assignment. I would have spent the whole time deciding which color resonated, and the light would have changed four times, and I would have drawn beige.

The third graders did not fail. They drew. A snap pea for green. A grapefruit for the reddish pink. And for yellow, butter and pancakes, which got giggles. Many of the drawings, the reporter noted, turned out to be food. Aimi suggested the class might be thinking about lunch, and took them back down.

The artwork is about perception. The perception, at eight, is pancakes.

Since then, the school wrote in December 2025, the Skyspace has become part of daily life: classes in visual arts, architecture, English, science and ethics use it, student clubs reserve it for quiet reflection, and on Friday afternoons a math teacher who coordinates the school's Quaker life holds Meeting for Worship there, open to the public. Public ticketed programs regularly sell out.

Visitors, the school says, come to experience Turrell's exploration of light and perception, attention and time.

I would like to bring a third grader along on one of those ticketed evenings. Not to spoil it. To translate. When the light turns yellow and everyone falls silent, someone should say, quietly, butter.

We tried it at home with a lamp that changes colors, which the middle one got for his birthday. I turned the lights off, set the lamp cycling, and asked the youngest to draw something real in the color that resonated with her. The lamp went green, then pink, then yellow. She drew a waffle. I said that wasn't yellow, it was golden-brown. She said I was not the teacher, and she was correct, and also hungry.