Rainbows of Hope

In March 2020, I saw a drawing of a rainbow in my apartment building with the hashtag #rainbowproject. The young artist created a curving color spectrum with markers and hung it on the wall with blue painter’s tape. Underneath the arc, the child wrote in red, “Everything will be ok!”

A friend posted on social media photographs of children’s rainbow drawings framed in house windows. She noticed these cheerful reminders of hope during chilly daily walks around her neighborhood. When I asked another friend in London during the worst events of April if he’d seen any children’s drawings of rainbows, he replied, “Yes, a few.”

A Double Rainbow over New York
New York became a hot spot for COVID-19. Nurses, doctors, and other essential workers toiled in dangerous circumstances to save lives in hospitals. Many patients with severe symptoms were placed on artificial respirators. On April 13, 2020, there was a rainstorm with fierce winds. A giant rainbow appeared over Manhattan while the nightly seven o’clock cheer took place for medical and frontline essential workers. Several minutes later, a double rainbow appeared over Brooklyn.

What Is a Rainbow?
A rainbow is an arc formed in the sky. The color spectrum is caused by the refraction and dispersion of the sun’s light by rain or other water droplets in the atmosphere. Although you can see a rainbow, you can’t touch it. Phrases like “at the end of the rainbow” refer to something much sought after but impossible to attain. Judy Garland sang “Over the Rainbow” as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. The poet Maya Angelou urged us, “Be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud.” Katy Perry sang, “After a hurricane comes a rainbow.”

A Powerful Symbol of Hope
As a leave replacement art teacher, I taught at several public schools. During one lesson, I asked my kindergartners to draw rainbows. We talked about how a rainbow is a visual representation of the color spectrum and a powerful symbol of hope. I showed them an illustrated book, Nature’s Light Show: Rainbows by Kristen Rajczak, from the school library. It explains the nature and science of rainbows with photographs. Then we discussed the order of the colors in a rainbow from top to bottom—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. As I drew the arc of a rainbow, one student exclaimed, “That’s too easy.” “A symbol represents something else that you must recognize quickly,” I explained.

After our discussion, I shared with students that there was a rainbow project on Instagram. Children all over the world were uploading pictures of their rainbow drawings. “Even in India?” one student asked. “Yes,” I answered as I wrote on the whiteboard “#rainbowproject.”

After I introduced the lesson, I showed a sing-along video of Kermit the Frog from The Muppets singing “Rainbow Connection” while playing the banjo in a swamp. A student shouted, “Kermit!” Another student on Zoom was visibly transformed while listening to this cheerful song. The lyrics mention, “Rainbows are visions, but only illusions…Someday we’ll find it, The Rainbow Connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me. All of us under its spell. We know it’s probably magic…”

Reflection
The act of creating rainbows is a constructive visual activity for children while parents and teachers are fighting for good health, jobs, and education. Children’s rainbow drawings and paintings bring families together. Drawing rainbows demonstrate that we are all in this together. Building a global community is like creating a rainbow, one color at a time.