Supplies and Practice of Open-Ended Art Exploration

 

When I was in high school there was a poster on the door of my art classroom that displayed the then-ubiquitous 3 R's (Reading, wRiting, and 'Rithmatic) along with a 4th: aRt. I think Mrs Sunday never knew how much that poster influenced my life. In grade twelve I spent nearly every lunch hour in the corner of the art room, using up her acrylic supply for finger-painting, and paint-squirting. To her enormous credit, she let me do it. I still do it, and I encourage everyone to do it - to get as messy and unexpectedly creative as possible with whatever supplies they're given.

I've spent a lot of time on this blog talking about explorative wilderness play, but am often asked about "real" art supplies, and what kinds of simple art projects are good for various situations, and I feel like it's time I give a nice solid answer to that.

First, let me be clear: The best way to learn art is by exploration. Art is also a wonderful explorative activity for learning everything else. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (2012) states the following:

"The benefits of play are recognized by the scientific community. There is now evidence that neural pathways in children’s brains are influenced and advanced in their development through exploration, thinking skills, problem solving, and language expression that occur during play.

"Research also demonstrates that play-based learning leads to greater social, emotional, and academic success. Based on such evidence, ministers of education endorse a sustainable pedagogy for the future that does not separate play from learning but brings them together to promote creativity in future generations. In fact, play is considered to be so essential to healthy development that the United Nations has recognized it as a specific right for all children."

So all those wonderful prescriptive art projects where you know the outcome before you begin, and the process of creation means following instructions? Those awesome craft kits that come with the pictures of what it will look like when you're done? They're junk. Throw them away. Or at the very least, get rid of the packaging and present the included materials with no expectations or directions and let the kids do whatever they want with them. Yes little ones might eat the crayons. So make sure they're non-toxic. Older kids might also melt them to make candles or wax prints or just to see how cool the melted colours are when pouring them around. Awesome! All of these things are actually done by professional artists all the time, so it's not even a stretch of the imagination to see their value. In fact, a stretch of the imagination is exactly where the value is to be found - because that is where the learning is. When I apply for an art grant for my own artistic practice, it always includes funding for "research"... which in the art world means experimentation and playing with material, form, and method.

It's important to think about how the presentation of the materials influences the way we use them. My father used to own a toy store, and supplied the Waldorf school in North Vancouver with the wonderful beeswax block crayons they use. He always had a lot of blacks left over, because they don't use those in their program. How does a child's thought-process change if they are never presented with the option to colour with black? We can't know for sure, but I am positive there are some interesting associations, there. I give me children all the colours. But do I always present them in rainbow-gradient? No. And amazingly, the kids end up sorting them themselves, into a myriad of different patterns, either because the sorting itself is fun, or because it's useful for whatever they're doing with the crayons. This, too, is an important part of their learning. It's how they familiarize themselves with the materials they're using, and with the colours they're working with.

Now for some material suggestions. I'm going to go most often with the cheapest alternatives, because we live in a disastrously consumerist society, and none of us needs to be buying new materials when they're not essential. Even on a tight budget you can get a load of materials at huge stores, but you don't need to. Going with unexpected chance finds from the local thrift shop, recycling depot, or other people's refuse not only saves money but also opens all sorts of new avenues for experimentation and problem-solving that will teach your kids more than a pristine new package from a store will.

Art-making space: Whatever your circumstances, just make sure you provide a large area where mess-making is acceptable and clean-up is easy. A large table is great but if you don't have one, or don't have suitable chairs, a corner of washable floor can be great too. Outside, a sheet of plywood on the ground suffices. I've done this often. Cover the space with a heavy paper that can be used for mess-making, drawing, or notes, and replaced when necessary. You can also cover it with a heavy plastic table-cloth, but glues and acrylics will eventually make the plastic lumpy, so I still recommend the paper-cover on top to make cleanup easier. 

But... don't keep art confined to this space. Take it to the kitchen. Bake cookies and cakes and decorate those; fill the sink with water and drip paints in or use the surface for oil-resist prints. Take art outside. Do tie-dyeing or papier mache there. Paint the lawn; paint your car or bicycle or front door. My uncle once gave his young children house paints and had them hand- and foot-print the front entry room. Decades later, their beautiful creative creation is still the welcome that guests first receive. Make everywhere art space.

An Easel: Not only does it give a new perspective to have your workspace upright, but dripping paint is wonderful, and should be encouraged. However, you don't have to go get an expensive easel. A stable propped board will do, as will an old sandwich board on a table. The best accessory for your easel, though, is a pair (or more) of large bulldog clips to hold paper in place.


Storage: If you want to have a beautiful art corner, you still can, even if it's not colour-coordinated or tidy. A bunch of large bins and a very few smaller ones will do well, or similarly a chest of drawers. We do have a great art-storage carousel that has been in use in our house for many years, holding an assortment of whatever the currently-most-used supplies are. This makes a greater number of supplies more easily accessible to various people seated at a table, and a handy place to put them away quickly. But it's not essential. A bunch of materials rolling around the table can actually inspire new ideas.

Some kind of drying rack is a great idea. We never had space for one, but the end of our dining room table was usually used for drying. Still, if you have space, old oven racks or baking racks can be a great thing to have in your art area. A permanent set of wire-rack shelves is amazing.

Paper: It really doesn't matter what you have - just have some. Preferably lots. We commonly have whatever papers people have passed on to us, including old letterheads, those old perforated printer-papers, construction and manila papers, some old used sketchbooks that people threw away with 80% of their pages still unused, and various types of white and coloured printer papers. I also supply my kids with the seemingly endless supply of graph-paper which they love. No papers have specific intentions. It's OK with me if fancy sketchbook papers get used for note-taking or construction or torn-up little shreds of I-don't-know-what, or even crumpling into balls and called 'cat toys'. Getting the paper second-hand helps me let go of my own hang-ups about 'intended use' and 'value', which gives the kids a broader explorative environment, and greater learning opportunities.

Cardboard: You could go all out and have some gigantic boxes for construction experimentation (my kids have built cars, rocket-ships, stores and villages, and most recently, as teens, a vending machine which they took into public for entertainment). But at the very least you should have some old boxes or scraps around in case construction starts happening. I hope it does!

Cutting Devices: Good scissors, appropriately sized for the people using them. An exacto knife. Obviously not for young ones, but you might have one handy to help out with big cuts. And a serrated bread knife! This has been very helpful to us for cutting cardboard, especially. Also never underestimate the usefulness of a good hole-pucher, and things like skewers for poking holes in cardboard.

String, ribbon, and other tying materials: Especially for constructing with cardboard, but also comes in handy for making books and all manner of other things. You never know when this will be just the thing you need in the moment!

If you're going to get a stapler, get a fabulous one like this that can reach into very big projects. 
And take a look at this Stockmar box from my childhood. The box has been replenished piece by piece over the years, and the crayons have been chewed and used by multiple generations.

Mark-Making: It's important not to narrow our kids' ideas of what constitutes a proper mark. So much is lost to a narrow mind! So provide lots of different options, and let the kids mix them up. You might want to keep some expensive felt-pens out of the acrylics, just to keep them in working condition, but experimental mixing of media in general is a highly educational activity, so do it! You don't need all of these but at least have many.

• chisel-tipped pens - for older kids sharpies are awesome.
• a great assortment of colourful felt-pens. Those cute stubby pens are a huge waste of plastic, though, since they run out frustratingly quickly and have to be thrown away. Tip: Store felt and ink pens tip-down, which means they last longer before drying out.
• pencil crayons (as they are worn down they make many different types of marks)
• wax crayons. Lots - and be prepared to see them very, very broken.
• those Stockmar beeswax block crayons I mentioned earlier.
• paint pucks that fit into a plastic tray - when you don't have time to get out the bottled paints, or just for watery experimentation, these are a wonderful thing to have available.
• bottles of tempera or acrylic paints that you can squirt out small amounts of for open-ended free painting (tempera is great for younger kids who might ingest it, but acrylic is great for the ability to paint on many surfaces).
• brushes! The best in my experience are natural stiff-bristle brushes, flat or chisel-shaped, because they give more opportunity for a variety of marks than round ones do, but others can be fun too.
• pencils, erasers, and fine black markers. 
• something smudgy like chalk or oil pastels. Sidewalk chalk can be used inside and chalkboard chalk can be used outside.

Glue sticks: Glue gets two sections because you need both. We always have a few glue sticks around, as they're the best way to stick papers together without soaking or wrinkling them. I recommend acid-free strong-hold glue-sticks. Don't bother with those silly school-glue types. They often don't hold.

White glue: While basic white glue will work for many applications, such as stiffening fabrics, gluing together cardboards, fabrics and layers of paper, we keep a bottle of Weldbond universal adhesive around because it glues almost everything! That's a great advantage when you're mixing up sometimes unexpected materials.


Fabric scraps and found materials: Without getting into the wonderful worlds of sewing and yarn arts, fabric itself is indispensable as an explorative material. With a bin of such materials for free creativity and exploration, you can create costumes, forts, decorations for those cardboard constructions, head-dresses, jewelry, dolls, doll-clothes, and really an endless list of delights. Have a bin of scrap fabric! And to this add found materials like plastic, corks, sticks, wires, etc. You never know what random things will be fabulous. Discarded CD's and cutlery for example. You just never know.

Something to squish and build with: A great block of clay and a big clay board to work on is awesome. That would be my favourite, although to be honest I didn't often have it on hand for my kids. We mostly used natural clay from the creek outside, and mud. Of course there are plenty of polymer clays available and while they're fun for building with, I don't personally like the environmental burden they bear (wanton use of plastics that end up in the garbage). I'm not really suggesting slime, either, because while slime-making and playing is a fine explorative activity, and fun, I think we get so much more mileage out of materials that stay put when shaped. A biodegradable glue mixed with sawdust or ground/shredded newspaper, by the way, is a pretty cool modelling material. So is salt dough, and gingerbread, if you want to eat your creation. One brand name product my kids did love and use for a long time was Stockmar modelling beeswax (no I'm not paid by Stockmar; they just make a few really fabulous products!).

***

So you see, the main thing is to have a fabulously free space and some stuff to play with there. Get messy. Play with the kids (or teens or adults!). They will learn a huge amount from watching what you do, so make sure you're exploring and have no idea what your outcome will be. This will help them learn to do the same, and together you'll make wonderful discoveries.

Do You Really Want Your Kid to Be an Artist?

Me at 7, trying to be an artist.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist. Or a botanist, or a hair-dresser. My parents and grandparents gave me wonderful art supplies, and my father even made me a palette with a hole in it for my thumb, and positioned the kitchen stool in front of the wall of our trailer for me to use as a painting stool. That’s me in the photo, in the early nineteen-eighties, feeling wonderful and accomplished, but with absolutely no idea of what it meant to “be an artist”.

So What, Exactly, Is an Artist?

I'm an artist, now. Twenty-five years and two kids after I got my degree in visual arts, my career is built on helping people reach beyond societal expectations to un-silence themselves, and connect genuinely with the world we inhabit. I do paint, and I do have gallery exhibitions, but I also tromp in the forests, use materials I never imagined would one day be called “materials”, and make art I never imagined would be called “art.” The focus of my work is to connect people with our own deeply-held stories; as an explorative learning consultant I also encourage parents and teachers to do the same with their children. It turns out art was just a vehicle for something more important to me. And I’m still an artist.

The stereotype of the famous artist making masterpieces in his (he's almost always male, white and powerful) studio has almost nothing to do with a successful art career. I wish somebody had explained this to me when I was a kid. Picasso was an abusive, deceitful creep, and we don't have to appreciate his work to be artists. There’s SO much more wonderfulness in being an artist than I had imagined! So much more diversity!

Artists are responsible for not only the beauty we see in our human-made world, but also for the connection we make with neighbours, for the realizations we make about our own lives and feelings when we watch movies, listen to music, or read books. Artists determine how easy it is to use the devices we buy. Through media, artists determine which devices and foods and colours will be more popular. They understand the influence of shapes, colours, sound, movement and texture on our emotions, and... like it or not, our emotions govern much of what we do. Artists are powerful. A “career in the arts” is a massively open-ended term, but also, having a grounding in artistic practice and theory means a deeper foundation or influence in any career we choose. Moreover, having the ability to express ourselves is an important foundation of meaningful connection.

I like to imagine a world full of people who were encouraged in this way. How happy, satisfied, and valuable could we all be? How would our chosen paths be enhanced by a facility with self-expression and material, sound, or movement exploration? Do you really want your kid to be an artist? And if so, how can you support them?

What NOT to do: Unsolicited "Help"

It's incredibly easy to break kids' confidence in art (or anything) and less easy to build it. As with so much in life, the first thing we can do to "help" our kids succeed is to get out of their way. It's not easy, especially when we're watching them struggle with something we know there's an easy solution for. But we zip our mouths, find something else to occupy our attention, and trust that they'll get where they need to go. And never, ever critique.

Criticism is more likely to break our confidence than to teach us something, and a shattered confidence is a massive barrier to success. My daughter is a writer, and was recently working on her second novel. I edited her first novel for her, judiciously reporting back on only glaring typos and missing punctuation. It was an amazing realistic fiction coming-of-age story, written from the bold heart of a young girl whose grandfather had recently died. I love it so much I heartily recommend it to readers of all ages. Her next novel, though, was a departure from the world she knew and understood so well, and required a steep learning curve. It was an epic fantasy, full of people from different cultures and a massively complex magical world... all of which she dutifully researched and developed before writing. But then she was challenged by trying to fit this enormous complexity into a single story. And when it came time for me to edit her book, I didn't hold back with the criticisms and suggestions. Some chapters were confusing, some events seemed out of place, and mostly I was confused by the timeline. Sure, she was only fourteen, but I just knew she was capable, so I critiqued! Despite my attempts at being gentle with my criticism, it all seemed insurmountable to her, and after a few attempts at editing, she abandoned the book. To her credit, she's keeping an open mind about the possibility of writing it in the future, but unfortunately I feel I threw a hammer at a beautiful glass sculpture she was creating, that actually she just needed more time with, alone. Without my critiquing.

So that's how not to build confidence. Just think of all the ways we're doing that, in every part of our kids' lives, and even our own. So many of us have an overachieving inner critic. And a culturally-supported fear that that critic is what's keeping us on the straight-and-narrow. But you know what? It's not. What would happen if we just didn't correct our kids? Well I have some experience with that, now, both in teaching and parenting. It's ridiculously hard to shut up my inner critic sometimes, but when I do, the kids thrive.

My daughter is truly an excellent writer--so much so, that in her frantic enthusiasm she charges ahead, forgetting to put periods at the ends of sentences, capitals on names, or sometimes misspelling words. She edits herself, and (as we all are prone to doing) sees right through her mistakes to read what she intended to write. What if she asks me to edit and I just ignore those mistakes? I've experimented with that. Sometimes she looks over her work later and discovers her mistakes. Sometimes she puts it aside for a few months, grows and learns, and comes back to it to realize she would now write it differently. Sometimes, even, she submits or publishes something with mistakes. And you know what? That's just fine! I frequently go back to my own work from years earlier, and see how much I've learned and grown since my thirties--and yet my work was appreciated then, as well. Have you any idea how many typos I still find in my writing? Tons. I'm especially accomplished at missing words and totally redundant examples. Sometimes I don't even bother to correct them. Because they're part of my humanity. Our kids deserve that space to be human, too.

Honouring Growth

Rhiannon, age 5, experimenting with paints.

As a visual artist, I love to look back and see all my mistakes. I look at portraits I painted years ago, and wonder why I did them the way I did; sometimes I also notice things I thought were problems at the time, that now inform new directions in my work. Growth is where it's at, people! Otherwise what are we living for? In some deep place, children know this, as from the moment they're born they challenge themselves to grow by exploring different tastes, movements, and expressions.

Children, like my daughter in the photo, above, want to represent their world. But it isn't always as we might expect! As parents, we have a choice about whether to show our children how to draw things the way we think it should be done, or to allow them to discover their own ways, through experimentation. My son was once drawing a whole page full of lines, and I asked him what he was drawing (something I've since learned not to do), and he told me it was a drum. I was totally perplexed, and asked him where the parts of the drum were. This was a boy who had no problem drawing a circle--why would he choose to represent a drum with a whole lot of unconnected lines? "It's the sound of the drum." He said. Boom.

He didn't need my assumptions. He needed my appreciation, and the freedom to keep exploring. As long as we respond to our kids' experiments with curiosity and loving encouragement, they'll continue to know that where they are on their journey of growth is perfect. And that will be the impetus they need to keep growing with enthusiasm. I have no idea how my son's drawings of sound influenced his life, but considering he now is employed as a visual artist and makes music to accompany his personal visual projects, I'm relieved I didn't get in the way of that particular growth pattern by showing him "how to draw a drum."

Asking Helpful Questions

I realized during my children's earliest years that questions like "what are you drawing?" are extremely limiting. In that question I have determined that my child must be trying to represent a specific thing, and the assumption is usually that it's a visual representation of something we know. But what if it's not? What if it's our children's experimentation with colours, shapes or lines? Or sound, as in the drum example? That kind of experimentation--without intent to satisfy outside demands--is essential for learning to use materials. Professional artists actually bill for material experimentation; it's called "research". We even sometimes mount gallery exhibitions composed entirely of experimental output--often to great acclaim. So why would I limit the possibilities of my own child's artistic output?

But we want to ask questions! We know it's important to engage and encourage! So how can we ask questions that promote growth-dialogue about art (or anything), without limiting our children's growth or expression?

Think about the words in the question "What are you drawing?" The word 'what' carries the assumption they're trying to represent an object. The word 'drawing' means we assume they're focused on the output of the material in their hands, as opposed to the feeling, taste, smell, or movement of it. How are these assumptions limiting the range of acceptable answers?

Drawing by Taliesin, age 3.

Maybe we have a kid who is happy to contradict us, and says, "I'm not drawing anything. I'm dancing the pen," or, as in my son’s drawing, above, “Nothing. I didn’t tell you.” (I learned a lot about parenting from that bold rejection.) But more likely, our kid wants to please us; to learn from our example, and will find a suitable answer, like, "some lines," or as my daughter used to do, look at a bunch of lines she was experimenting with and come up with a wild explanation like, "it's a dog on a house with the family having dinner." It's tragically very common that kids learn to minimize themselves to match what they perceive coming from adults. I've seen plenty of kids who were making successful attempts at depicting what might have been people or animals declare that they were “just scribbling.” Why? Because maybe they feared hearing our criticisms, or maybe we've previously defined their drawings of animals as 'scribbling', or maybe, because their own inner critic is already developed enough to silence their voice.

Adults are notoriously bad at asking kids questions, and kids generally have rote answers ready to respond to each of them: How old are you? How is school? What are you making? What is your favourite colour/subject/sport/etc.? How are we so uninspired?! These questions aren't about engaging with kids or developing rapport; they're expected. What if, instead of asking what they're drawing, we invite them to tell about what they're doing? This is an open invitation to consider what they're doing and talk about it. It's up to us to be open to hearing their response, no matter how long, unexpected, or confusing it may be. Not all questions will be helpful for all kids in all situations, but through practice we can become better at asking good questions. Here's a list of interesting open-ended questions to use in engaging kids to talk about their art:

• Interesting! Can you tell me about this?
• Does this have a story or feeling?
• How do you feel about what you're doing?
• Show me how you like to use [material]...
• What do you think about the materials you're using?
• Are there any other materials you'd like to use?

Materials

Ah how I love shopping for materials!! And hoarding them!! Don't we all?! How much of our parenting waste is comprised of once-used adorable kits that were soon replaced by something newer and more exciting? I won't go on at length about this, because I've previously written a whole article about Materials for Open-Ended Art Exploration. But suffice it to say that well-chosen art materials are the foundation of good artistic experience. And I don't mean the expensive stuff. I mean well-chosen. Materials can be anything from kitchen supplies to mud and sticks outside, to a mish-mash of mark-making, gluing, cutting and melting tools. The important feature of all of these things is that they do not come with instructions or intended uses. How we present and use materials is much more important than what they are.

Modelling

From the moment they were born, and possibly earlier, our kids have looked to us to lead them. The important thing to remember about modelling to our children is that it's happening all the time; not just when we do it intentionally. Our kids see our hesitation and fear with art as much as they see our enthusiasm. They see us avoid trying new things, and they see us when we courageously do them, and when we have small successes and failures. They emulate not only our actions but also the way we emotionally deal with these things.

With this in mind, the absolute best thing we can do for our children is to use any and all materials available to us to explore creatively, for our own happiness. That last bit is important. Kids can smell a fraud from a mile away, so we have to be creative in the way that we want to be. Otherwise we're just teaching our kids to put on a show for someone else's benefit, and that's nothing about authenticity.

And we should stretch ourselves. If we're accustomed to buying craft kits and following the instructions, we should absolutely try to break that habit (more on why in the materials article, above) and try experimenting with new materials. We can also stretch our definition of art-making. Try experimental baking! Try sewing or crocheting! Try putting on your favourite music, getting dressed up in fancy dress or costumes and dancing your heart out! Try painting your whole self and rolling around on an old sheet, outside. In the rain! It doesn't matter what or how you engage in art, just as long as you do it. And if your output isn't what you expect? Even better. Keep experimenting. You're modelling growth to your children.

Living a life full of joyful exploration and learning, ourselves, is the best way we can teach our children.
 

Nurturing Important Skills

Me at 4, being an artist.

We’re culturally trained to associate specific skills and attributes with art: dancers should be thin and flexible, visual artists should be able to draw realistic depictions with technical skills like shading, perspective, and colour theory; musicians should first learn to read music and do scales. Unless we’re born talented, of course.

Oh hell, I hate the word ‘talent’! It's such a harmful concept. I wasn't born talented; I developed some skills in accurate rendering of my observations by having a keen interest in observing how things are put together; how the light plays on them, and being given room to experiment with materials throughout my life. It was easy for me because I loved it, just like my daughter loves telling stories, so writing is easy for her to learn. We develop the skills we need when we realize we need them, and as long as we're not discouraged from exploring them.

As parents and teachers, we need to help build foundational skills for life, and trust that those material skills will come when needed. As an artist, I owe a huge amount of my career satisfaction to some less-concrete skills and passions:

• seeing the big picture in life, art, etc.
• a keen interest in social phenomena
• a passion for exploration and discovery

We really can't know what skills will be foundational for each of the unique kids we work with. Neither can we know the cultural landscape our kids will grow into, nor what careers will be common, when they’re grown. Who knew, when I was in art school twenty-five years ago that people would be making virtual and even invisible art to sell online, one day? Who knew I’d raise a son who gets paid to make thousands of geographically plausible planet renderings by using procedural generation techniques? His art process looks like a bunch of visual programming. I could never have predicted this, never mind taught him these skills. So when trying to support kids I parent and teach, I try to encourage growth of all sorts of skills. Life is not divided by subject. Careers are not determined by skill-acquisition. It's all interconnected. The more we learn, the more we can learn.

So Do You? Really?

Yes. I guess I really do want my kids to be artists--however that looks for them, and however it looks in the future we can only dream of. I want them to explore all the materials and develop all the skills I can’t even fathom right now. I want them to change the definition of the word “artist” to mean new and wonderful things, and I want them to keep on growing as the world grows, around them.

Self-Directed Art & Learning Too

bubble art during one of my classes

Yes, I wrote about this not too long ago (read the semi-recent post, here), but it seems that people come here looking for it, and often are looking for specific projects. I guess perhaps I need to post some examples of how one creates self-directed learning opportunities. I'm going to stick with art, because that's what people are often coming here for, but obviously this goes for anything.

First, briefly, What is Self-Direction? It means simply that the activity is determined by the doer, and not by the teacher. This usually means that the activity will be exploratory, and exploration means learning.

The least beneficial activity I can imagine is one where the end result is not only determined by a teacher, parent, or superior, but also demonstrated. Such an activity not only creates an often unattainable goal of perfection for the student (leading to stress and often failure), but also implies that the students' own ideas are not valued, since we are striving to copy somebody else's idea, so it must be better. This is of course the opposite of what I want in my teaching or parenting.

The ideal activity, to me, is one where ideas or materials are shared, but not overtly demonstrated, and where the student is encouraged to explore with materials (even to explore with finding/creating materials) and to share their discoveries. This implies that whatever the student may discover is important, and whatever creation, idea, or inspiration comes of the activity is by its simple existence highly valuable and appreciated by others involved.


Self-Direction Requires Flexibility: As adults coping with the high-stress realities of modern western civilization, we are often product-oriented, results-driven, and in a hurry. For example, it would be very useful and efficient if our child could churn out 25 valentines for friends in one sitting, thereby making each friend feel equally appreciated, and the parents of those friends feel that we've raised a caring child who is capable of creating valentines. It would be even more useful and efficient, however, if from the experience of creating one valentine, for a recipient of the child's choosing (or even for nobody-in-particular), the child could discover deep values of friendship, personal connection to the act of creating, and have an explorative art experience. It may take our child a very long time of experimentation to discover his/her own preferred method of valentine-creation, but in the end any product will be wholly his/her own, the memories and neural pathways forged will be more meaningful, and probably more helpful to subsequent art activities, and the pride in whatever the outcome is will be genuine and whole. It will be a product of our child's own heart, own mind, and own method.

As a family that follows our own and our children's inspirations as much as possible, we have to be flexible. The choice to fully homeschool our children means a time- and financial sacrifice, for sure, but we have never regretted it. This is the time we're all growing and learning, together, and when a particular activity takes a long time and impinges upon other plans, we either roll with it or accept that this activity will have to be curtailed.


Self-Direction Within a Framework: Making an activity non-goal-oriented does not mean there can't be a framework, or inspirational idea, to begin with. The following examples are common art activities which I've reworked (the "Creative Alternative") to allow students to learn more by exploration and self-direction.


Activity:

Valentine's Day Card: Discuss the meaning of hearts, and how we can make people happy by giving valentines. Provide children with a choice of red or white folded cards, glue, and pre-cut foam Valentines shapes in red, white, and pink. Instruct children to glue valentines shapes in specific patterns on the cards, so that they'll end up with something pleasing, like the pre-made example. When they're finished, they can decorate with glitter-glue. Help the children to spell names and a message inside the card, put it in an envelope and send it home with them for their parents.

Creative Alternative: Discuss the feelings we experience when we share love and kindness with others. Provide children with a choice of many colours of unfolded cardstock and various supplies, such as scissors, glue, ribbons or yarn, glitter, and fabric scraps. Encourage them to experiment with different shapes and material combinations before gluing down, and then just stand back. When they've finished, they may have folded their card, or they may not have; they may want to write in it, or they may not. The card may be for somebody in particular (in which case, help them wrap it in paper when it's dry, address it, and take it to the post-office to mail, or hand-deliver, if appropriate), or it may be just an expression of their feelings and exploration, in that moment. The benefits to them are the opportunities to explore feelings, social systems, and materials.

Activity:

harvesting clay during one of my classes

Clay Pot with Handles: Give each participant a lump of clay and two, separate, smaller lumps. Demonstrate creating a pinch-pot, and rolling out the smaller lumps to create handles. Demonstrate proper technique for attaching the handles with hatching and slip. Set aside to dry.

Creative Alternative: Give each participant a lump of clay. Sit down beside them, give no instruction, and watch them play. If you plan to fire the clay and notice they are trying to attach things, demonstrate hatching and slip attachment, and explain why it helps the clay to stick together. Do not instruct them to copy you; just suggest this as a useful method.

Better yet (if possible) take them to a creek to harvest natural clay. Expand the activity to wet sand, mud, snow, or home-made dough sculpting. Projects can even be left outside, exposed to the elements, so students can watch them return to their natural state (like watching a snowman melt away).

blind figure drawing with homemade charcoal

Activity:

Portraiture: Teach participants classical proportions for face-drawing, with a diagram-example, and ask them to lay out a grid on paper and use it as a template for drawing the face of someone sitting opposite them.

Creative Alternative: Look at portraits done by other people, including caricature, abstract, expressionist, and super-realist. Discuss the various ways in which artists capture expression. Have participants create a series of blind line-drawings of the person sitting opposite them. Blind drawing means drawing what one sees directly, without looking at the paper (blindfold optional). When the drawing is finished, the artist looks at the paper, but commits not to change the drawing, further. The drawing is set aside, and another one begun, also blind. The process can be likened to a direct physical interpretation of the form perceived by the eyes. It's really quite wonderful to see the likeness achieved by this method. After 6 or 7 drawings, the participant usually begins to let let go of inhibitions and see the subject more openly. This is as much an exercise in human understanding and working without goals as it is in drawing.

Activity:

multi-age art discussion

3D Drawing Techniques: Demonstrate techniques for implying three-dimensionality with pencil or ink, including shading, pointillism, cross-hatching, and weighted line-drawing. Provide a series of clean geometric solids with a single light-source, and instruct participants to practice various techniques to draw those shapes.

Creative Alternative: Spend a lot of time talking about various objects in the vicinity. Many of these will be complex shapes, or have various light-sources. Talk about the colours, and how they change given different light-sources. You may take an object outside to see how it changes in the natural light. You may block natural light coming in windows to explore colour and shadow changes. IF you still have time to draw, you may provide charcoal and ask participants to experiment with finding and drawing shadows of whatever they'd like, in the area. There is no expected outcome; just experimentation with drawing shadows.

Activity:

Japanese Calligraphy: Discuss the function and use of some general symbol-sets used in Japan. Look at calligraphy, and discuss the importance of making strokes in the appropriate order. Show participants particular kanji and ask them to trace or copy them, then make a version in paint or ink.

Creative Alternative: Calligraphy is about expression. It can even, in fact, be as much or more about expressing feeling, ki, and movement than about being a particular character. Discuss this. Look at calligraphy, including some in the native language of the participants. Talk about the etymology of the word calligraphy ('beautiful writing'). Spend time meditating and learning to feel the life-force before expressing it. Now ask students to choose one idea or word that is very meaningful to them, personally, and to express it in black ink, with a brush, in their own language, a known symbol or pictograph, or in any other way they feel like. Make sure there is plenty of extra paper, and allow them to explore the expression of ink on paper.

Activity:

Class Performance: Purchase a script, complete with recorded songs, etc. assign roles to the group-members, and have them rehearse and perform along with the music. Of course there's a lot of work that goes into pulling something like this together, and many elementary schools put huge efforts into it every December. I'm not doing it justice, but that's because I think it's so wrong. Yes, some or most children will get inspired about their roles, and yes, it sometimes seems like the only option when we're faced with an overload of obligations, and yes, the parents will be pleased to see their little ones performing... but they won't hear their voices over the recording they are following, and the benefit is just not what it could be.

Creative Alternative: Have extensive group discussions about the topic at hand, play games that relate to it, have the group members express their relationships to and feelings about it, through various art forms. Sing songs together that involve input and imagination of the participants. Divide the group into smaller parts, if necessary, and ask them to develop their own performances that express some common interest they share about the topic at hand. Honour their work, give them support and encouragement, but don't guide them, other than to provide necessary time-constraints, help settle arguments, suggest practical solutions, etc. The performance will be wholly their own.

I have to share this: of all the Christmas concerts/performances I participated in as a child at my elementary school, the one I remember and treasure most is the one where we were divided into groups and asked to choose an unusual December tradition and make a play about it. My group chose Sinterklaas, and we developed a play, complete with costumes and a song, that illustrated the basics of this holiday for our classmates and parents. I remember there was some arguing among us (who would play which roles, I think it was) but the memory as a whole is extremely positive.

Activity:

Abstract Mural: Discuss and explore various styles of abstract art, and have participants mimic one of their choice, with whatever materials are available. Join all drawings together to create a wall full of abstract art.

group mural during a Wild Art Class in my studio

Creative Alternative: Discuss and explore various styles of abstract art, and create a mural, together. Spread a very large piece of paper on a large table or many tables, joined together, and supply materials of complimentary sorts (various paints with brushes, OR dry materials, OR wax crayons and watercolours). Have participants spread out around the table with their chosen materials or colours, and ask them to create whatever they are inspired to, with the inspiration provided (can be music, poetry or a story read aloud, meditation, previous discussion or experience, etc.). Find a way of moving around the table, so that each participant ends up working in and around the designs already created by others. When the paper feels complete (or full), ask people to look at the mural as a whole, and find ways to pull it together, compositionally. This means not just following around the table, but reaching across, changing positions, and perhaps even taking turns getting up onto the table to create.  

No part of the mural is sacred, and all is open for change. In this way, participants not only share their work, but also their inspiration, and are required to problem-solve along the way, experimenting with various material- and colour-combinations that they may not have been faced with, working alone. The personal nature of the project is gone with the changes made by others, and it becomes a truly group effort. This is one of my favourite group-cohesion activities. I've done it often, especially with adults.

How to Talk about Activities:

Closed comments/questions leave little room for creativity or self-expression:

What did you draw?

What is this a picture of?

Is that a man/house/tree/etc.?

Oh it looks so perfect/realistic!

Open comments/questions open dialogue that the child can direct:

Tell me about what you've done, here.

What kinds of shapes/feelings/ideas do you see, here?

Oh this looks like it was fun to make!

What do you feel about this activity?

Supplies for open-ended art exploration:
2018 Update: Rickshaw Unschooling: Supplies and Practice of Open-Ended Art Exploration

Self-Directed Art & Learning

About 17 years ago, now, I nervously went in to teach my very first class. I had been hired by a couple of parents to teach their young children art. I was 17. I was terrified. I don't remember what I asked the first girl I spoke to, but I will never forget her answer: "I can only draw angels." She pulled out a pen and paper and drew some patterned "angels" -- a whole row of them! I was heartbroken to hear her limit herself that way, and wanted nothing more than to show her that she could be free from her angels. It was at that moment that I became an art teacher. Thank you, Sarah.

I came to my views on open-ended art naturally. My mother is a music therapist and Reggio Emilia preschool teacher at Bowen Island Preschool and my father owns BC Playthings toy store, where he promotes child-centred activity and natural toys. In both this preschool and this toy store, colouring books are not allowed. And furthermore, every person I have taught or worked with has driven the idea that open-ended learning is essential deeper into my being.

Not only is open-endedness essential for creativity, but the ability to creatively explore is essential for learning anything! A teacher-directed activity implies that the teacher knows best, while self-directed learning implies that the learner's thoughts and actions are most valuable. As soon as those thoughts or actions lose perceived value, the learner loses interest, and the desire to explore and learn begins to slip away. Some people are very attached to following instructions, but I feel this is a result of lack of confidence, or even of failure to measure up. Then we have to remind ourselves: if we are only looking to measure up, then how can we ever reach our true potential, which may very well be higher than up, or simply in a different direction? We have to give ourselves the freedom to go in any direction, to go where our authentic selves will naturally go.

The importance of self-direction in learning also has little to do with age. This is why I often choose to use the term self-directed over child-directed or child-centred; I believe this applies to people of all ages. People of any age will learn more when they are inspired to explore; the only change that comes with age is that many of us have our independence squashed as we grow up. That doesn't mean it's gone. It's just in need of some nourishment. Give a born-and-raised Canadian adult a handful of mosaic squares, some glue and a piece of paper, and she will likely begin gluing the squares into some recognizable shape or pattern. Give them to my unschooled six-year-old, and she might fold them into tiny "origamis" and decorate herself with them. She would make a potion with the glue, and use the paper to wrap up her sorted stacks of coins, in case she might one day want to take them to the store, and then it might be handy to have them sorted (this happened, today). Maybe she'd just glue the squares one on top of the other, on the back of her own hand, and call it a wart. It's not a project; it's just what she's doing: exploring. I feel that one of my most important responsibilities as a parent and teacher is to avoid squashing that creativity with my own ideas and expectations.

So what if people ask for help to reach a specific end-result? With some things like origami I've created an example, following directions, and then experimented with it, to see how I could create my own unique product, thereby giving students the freedom to be unique, as well. I'm just like they are: experimenting with somebody else's technique. Often the outcomes of my experiments aren't what I've hoped for, and this is part of the journey. Other times I supply a range of alternatives, and suggest that perhaps a combination of these methods or materials might yield interesting results. Then we all get to experimenting, together.

It isn't ever up to me, as the teacher (or parent) to know the answers, because how could I possibly know everything? Then the best thing students could strive for is to know what I know, and really, that would be unfortunate. I'm just not that knowledgeable. I sincerely hope that every person I teach reaches his/her own personal goals that have nothing to do with me. My 8-year-old son already understands much more than I do about physics -- thank goodness! But that doesn't stop me from taking his journey with him. What I know is how to say "wow -- show me how that pneumatic thingy you designed works!" My role as a teacher (as I see it) is to help people find their own creativity and desire to learn. That's it! Sometimes it seems there will never be an end to the adults who come to my classes, wanting me to impart my artist-skills to them, and to whom I hope I have instead opened a door to finding their own skills. (Not to mention the many skills and much wisdom that I glean from them...)


Unschooling Outtake: Or what if, in her free reign of art-making, my 6-year-old decides to cut up my precious handmade clothing, paint books with jam, or decorate my furniture and dishes with acrylic paint or glued on "fairy-paintings"? Well, then... I cry. Oh well. Lesson in guarding/respecting personal property -- check!

More reading (because really, everybody should):
Robert Schirrmacher, Ph.D: Child-Centered Art vs. Teacher-Directed Projects

Susan Striker's book, Young at Art (I haven't read this, but it looks good)

Tom Anderson: Art Education for Life

Why Art is Essential for Learning

Have you ever seen Saturn's rings? I mean in person? I have. Once when my science-obsessed son was passionate about astronomy (and the technology for studying it!), we went out to share the moment of Saturn's proximity to the earth with some other enthusiasts and an enormous telescope. It took what felt like far too long to set that telescope up - over an hour, as I recall - as I stood with my young kids in the freezing winter field, assuring them over and over again that that one particular bright point of light we could see was, in fact, Saturn. I knew it was. My research on the Internet and some of the other people gathered that night had confirmed it. And I had faith in science to be right. I knew this was an exciting event because everybody told me so. But it was also cold, frustrating, and as the time dragged on, and the thing they said was Saturn kept marching across the sky, ever out of the continually readjusted telescope, I was losing my faith. 

Finally the telescope was properly set up, and we awaited our turns to look. By the time my turn arrived, Saturn had drifted out of view again and the telescope had to be adjusted. Again. Then I looked. It was like someone was showing me a cartoon. There was Saturn with it's rings (I could even see the dark gap between them), and three of its moons clearly visible. I struggled to link the tiny white image I was seeing, which looked so rudimentary, with the immaculate photos and renderings I'd seen in colour in movies and books, and with reality. I looked from the eyepiece of the telescope back up to the point of light in the sky. I looked along the length of the telescope and confirmed that it was, in fact, pointed at that same point of light, and that by all reason I was truly seeing the same point, magnified by a series of lenses. I gazed into the eyepiece, and after a few moments realized that I could see the three-dimensionality of it. I could see a slight shadow from the planet on its own rings. the little logo-like image drifted to the edge of my view again, and I realized that, not only was I looking at a real planet dancing unfathomably far away from our own, but also that our own was slowly turning away in its own different but intrinsically connected part of the dance of our solar system.

I would have said Mind. Blown. But that wasn't a thing yet back then, or my kids weren't old enough to have taught it to me. My previously-limited mind opened in that freezing cold moment, and the solar system became interesting to me. Gravity became interesting to me. Telescopes and people who use them became interesting to me. So much that I had never even wondered about who we are as humans in this beyond-huge infinity of the universe began to preoccupy my thoughts, until I found I looked at earth, and humanity, and my children, and me, differently than I had, before.

Then we all began to freeze in earnest, and we went home to our fires.

Art is like that telescope, that night. It's what brings us to the world and helps us understand it. Art is about learning to see. So often this basic truth goes unnoticed as we imagine that art is for artists; that art is a frivolous pass-time, or that art should take a backseat to more essential activities like learning to read, solving equations, and developing the ability to recite stories from human history. Many of us have heard, by now, that music enhances math education, and that children who learn through music and dance retain information better than those who only learn through verbal instruction. But how often do schools offer visual art as an essential learning tool for all students? We all suffer the consequences of blindness as a result of not learning to see. 

As someone who sees breakthroughs of discovery and understanding on a regular basis when I teach art, I want to take some space to explain, a little. The examples I'm going to talk about aren't the end of the equation; there are so many ways we can learn to see. These are just a few of an infinite variety of ways that our species opens our minds through visual art. I believe very strongly that gaining visual and creative literacy is an essential part of learning and retaining all that information that our culture values so deeply.

Line Drawing

Fundamentally, line-drawing requires a mental translation from an understood three-dimensional concept to a two-dimensional surface. We know what we know more than we are conscious of what we see. Line drawing requires and promotes development of conscious observation. Have you ever seen a child draw a picture of a house with all four sides visible, as if the four walls were unfolded onto the plane? We can't see the back of the house, but the child knows it's there, so draws it. Similarly, they often draw the sky as a blue line, because they understand the concept of there being a sky above, but they don't conceptualize the idea that it's unending, and therefore, in a line-drawing, invisible. All of these things require observation to discover, and training and practice of observation and line-drawing promotes this discovery.

There are so many ways to translate observation into line, from the rather mathematical calculation of perspective to the deep inquiry needed to document tiny things we might otherwise not examine (like the texture of a leaf), to the intuitive, emotional research needed for blind contour drawing of people we know. All of these things allow us to look and see in new ways, and then we take these new ways of seeing into other activities. Learning to draw a street with linear perspective, for example, not only helps us understand observation, relative size, and laws of physics, but also helps us understand the vastness of our world, and opens our eyes to see more consciously when we're out in the world. So in the end it gives us a deeper understanding of everything.

Technical and Psychological Colour Theory
My daughter still talks about the time she learned from her very clever friend at preschool that mixing red and white would make pink. So she tried it, but used red and yellow... and it turned out orange! She was painting a sculpture of broccoli, and decided that while pink would have been an acceptable colour for her broccoli, orange was definitely not. She was three at the time, and at fifteen this memory still comes back to her at regular intervals, because it had a huge impact on her. Not only did she make some discoveries about colour-mixing (technical colour theory), but she also discovered something about which colours jive with the concept of broccoli in her mind (psychological colour theory).

Tie-dyeing is a great experimental colour theory activity.

We are influenced by colour every second of our lives, from the clothing we choose, to the hues emitted by our light bulbs, to the design and advertising of commercial entities. We can grow up blind to this, or we can learn to recognize how we respond to colour and, using this knowledge, make wiser choices. For example, turning on the night screen mode of your devices can have a noticeable impact on your mental and physical health, since the blue light emitted by our screens changes our brain chemistry, affecting our sleep and various body systems. I also just recently discovered that blue light actually triggers our retinas to kill off photoreceptor cells, eventually leading to macular degeneration. Literally, blindness. Light really does have a physical effect on our bodies, and colour is light. Having an understanding of not only how we are affected by colour, but how we can manage it, mix it, and use it in our worlds gives us agency in our own lives and health.

An understanding of colour can open our eyes to the rest of the world, as well. If we start noticing colour in all its capacities in our lives, we notice things we didn't before. As with all of these visual discoveries, we learn to see, consciously.

Three-Dimensional Form
How often do you look at the wall of your house and wonder how it was put together? All the layers, all the varied materials and their unique functions -- do you wonder what kind of insulation is in there, and why? Do you look at a couch or an upholstered chair and wonder what's under the fabric? Do you flip through a hardcover book and then peek down inside the spine to see how it's constructed? I teach bookmaking because it opens our minds to three-dimensional form and material use. Building a hand-bound hardcover book requires a slightly complex series of construction steps, including folding and tearing or cutting pages, sewing them together, creating a sturdy, flexible spine for them with starched cheesecloth and glue, then building a hard cover out of board and paper or fabric, then embellishments, then attaching the book to its cover with perfectly-fitted endpapers. And then suddenly there you are holding a real, honest-to-goodness book, and understanding not only what all the parts are, but why they're there.

Our world is full of constructed objects, and understanding how and why things are built the way they are allows us to see everything more deeply, and also gives us the insight needed to repair and build things, ourselves. Learning how to knit a sweater, construct a pie or a complex cake, fix a bike or cobble a fix on a broken backpack are all essential in the same way: Instead of replacing broken goods, we can repair them; instead of relying on others to provide for us, we can be self-reliant. Understanding how things are made gives us confidence and courage to take charge of our own lives.

Experimentation
I can't write about learning without mentioning how important it is that experimentation is a part of the process. Remember that orange broccoli? My daughter's experimentation in grabbing yellow instead of white, and the consequential discovery that different parts make a different whole, is probably the reason she remembers the incident at all. When somebody tells us something, we may take it or leave it, but there's not much emotional pay-off in just following instructions. There's a huge emotional pay-off in discovering something ourselves!

The other day I took my son's snowboard in to a local ski and board shop, hoping to replace a lost toe ramp. Apparently the bindings are an older model, and the toe ramp is not something we can just order and replace. And no way on earth can I afford new bindings. So this amazing person at North Shore Ski and Board examined the remaining toe ramp on the other binding, disappeared for a few minutes, and came back with some handfuls of padding, boot inserts, and double-sided tape paper. He gleefully experimented for a few minutes with different materials and placements, until he came up with a solution that most closely matched the other toe ramp. Then he started measuring, cutting and gluing, and in less than an hour, total, he had repaired my son's snowboard. He charged me for the parts and time, which was far less than any binding replacement part would have cost, if I had been able to buy one. And then he posted about his awesome customer service on social media, and showed off his handiwork to his boss. His pride was glorious for me to witness.

Like Icarus' experiment, this one didn't go as expected, either. He learned many things, that day!

Art leads to experimentation, and humans need to experiment. It's how we learn and evolve. Trying new things, failing, and trying again is how we learn to keep trying; how we develop resilience and courage and grit. All of the important skills that art gives us are made more accessible through experimentation. It's not enough to teach someone how to draw a street scene with accurate perspective; we need to allow children to make perspective drawing part of their personal experimentation, without criticism, direction, or correction, so that they make discoveries and carry that learning on into the next things they play. We need to give them time and space to make a big mess; to scratch up clay from the creek and see if they can build something of it; to take apart their toys because what's inside is more interesting than what's outside. We need to give them resources and time and encouragement, and then stand back and just allow them to experiment. That is how they will grow up to see the world around them as a great big fascinating opportunity for growth. That is how our children will grow.

Wild Art!

What can we get from art?
When we experience art as an open-ended, non-coercive, self-directed joy - as play and experimentation with idea and material - we open ourselves to create from our souls outward. In this creation we open our minds to deep understanding of art, of humanity, of process, and of every "subject area" in the world. When we leave behind the boundaries of our expectations for an undefined end-result; when we abandon learning "art skills" and embrace the process of exploration, we learn more. And happily, the products that come in the end will not fit the molds we've come to recognize. Instead we'll find our own, new forms, and their uniqueness and beauty will embody all that is wonderful in our souls. The paths we forge in our creative freedom will lead our journeys for creative learning in all areas of our lives.

Great artists do not come from great training; they come from inspired creative souls who dare not to follow directions. This is passionate self-directed learning! This is life!

Today, take a handful of random materials and see how creative you can be! There is no wrong way to express yourself!

(This is sort of an addendum to my previous post: Self-Directed Art and Learning.)

Problems Solved, and Some Educational Ranting

This is what remains of the thread previously discussing our concerns and solutions for the children's learning programs. Just to update those of you who knew there were problems: the problems are solved. Taliesin's schedule has changed, but we're now happy with the program he attends, which I am not going to name here, anymore.

Art Teacher's Rant
First of all, Taliesin has a wonderful art class, which I am not criticizing at all with this post. He enjoys it thoroughly, and although they have been doing a unit of very "advanced" art concepts, they are now moving on to some more free curriculum, both of which Taliesin loves.

But I must say this: It irks me terribly to have learned that the reason they have such "advanced" subject matter in Taliesin's art class is because parents requested it, originally. I have had those parents come to my classes, too. I have had parents tell me their children can draw like Robert Bateman, and they'd like me to hone those skills; I've had parents tell me my classes are "too free", "not advanced enough", and other such nonsense. I have, for the most part, grown strong enough to say "no", to politely explain my educational philosophy, and to explain why I will never, in my lifetime, teach a child to "draw like Robert Bateman". Those were, I must add, sometimes the same parents who never showed appreciation for their children's work, who even had their children tear up or throw the work in the garbage, because it wasn't "good enough".

I realize that not everyone shares my beliefs, but it is my firm belief that all people, but especially children, gain most in art education from inspiring projects given with freedom and encouragement, as well as a huge dose of experimentation. It’s not so much my job as a teacher to cause my students to learn established concepts as it is to inspire them. That is, to cause them to want to do -- to participate, to experiment, to express themselves and to research their own deep notions and experiences – they may not ever learn to understand or imitate other art movements or styles, but they will surely develop their own, and in doing so, may be inspired to look back at others’, as well.

It’s hard not to rant on this, because I care so deeply about what I do, and I know very well how rewarding it is to see my children excel at something, and to want to encourage them to learn to write, draw, calculate, sing, etc. like adults do. But learning to copy, or bypassing a natural progression of self-discovered learning in favour of teaching "higher levels" is not something I will teach, nor is it something I want taught to my children -- I can’t believe it’s right.

And I've had enough highly pleased and enthusiastic parents come and thank me, that I'm quite sure I'm not alone in this.

Different strokes, as they say... but I'm firmly in mine.

Self Discovery: Patience

So I recently had an art show. See the remnants here, if you wish, but this post is not about the art show. This post is about learning. Me. Learning. Humility.

Ceramic sculpture by Heidi Roemer, Victoria, B.C.

Patience
I don't have a lot of patience. I frequently gnaw at my tethers, and tend to talk so much in my hurry to say the things that come to mind that I forget to listen, and frankly it takes a lot to fascinate me to the point of getting my rapt attention. But inside my own installation, where the art is to be found in the viewers' reactions, I'm all ears. People ask me what my intentions are; what my training and material choice is; what the stories behind the work are, and I usually tell them to go have a look for themselves and see what their own hearts see.

Some people look and some don't. Some come tell me what they think, and some leave in silence or with a quiet nod and thanks. Some participate in the show by adding their stories in writing, some by telling their stories to me, and some with silent tears. The guestbook is filled with kindnesses, and nobody leaves a negative note. But I know there are many people who are displeased -- offended, even. And I wish I could hear those people's thoughts. Some never even walk in the door.

But one man stayed. A retired judge. He walked all around the show, then sat on the bench by the door, waiting for his ride. He eventually told me he thought the work was awful. Unkind. Disgraceful. Ugly. And was I the artist?

I hesitated. "Yes."

Well he said he thought it was disrespectful to women. Why would I paint women so ugly when they're so beautiful? And I was stunned. Literally I was stunned into silence, because I honestly could not understand where he was coming from. He said I was such a nice young woman and he couldn't understand why I would paint women with so much hatred. I thought silently about how much love I'd felt while painting these things; how much joy in watching women participate in the show, but I didn't tell him. He literally shocked me into silence, and it was to my benefit. I kept on listening. He pulled a chocolate heart from his bag and gave it to me, saying that he carries them around to give to people to remind them that they are beautiful. This gesture was very strange to me, and I kept listening. Sometimes I wanted to defend my work, but I stopped myself. And eventually, after a very long time, he told me that the bald women in my paintings reminded him of the bodies at Buchenwald.

Wow. And that was the moment my stunned listening paid off. Not only did I realize that he was coming from an understanding I will never share, and that, like every other visitor to the gallery, he looks at it through his own life's lens, but I also realized that that long period of simply listening had been necessary not just for me to understand, but for him to come to an understanding of his feelings. That is something we know, I think, but something we (or at least I!) very rarely consciously consider. I need to talk to understand my feelings, too. But do I give others that chance? Rarely.

Listening
Listening is an art. I have been trying so hard to listen for so many years, and it is certainly a steep uphill climb for me. But in these past couple of weeks I have begun to see how many times my impatience has meant that my children are not heard; how many times I interpret their silence as an answer only because I didn't wait long enough; how many times I miss the boat because the call aboard was a long complicated story and I had stopped listening after the first whisper. I now see how many times my own fear of offending has meant that I tried to answer for people before allowing them the time to make their own conclusions and ask questions.

Fear
I talk a lot on this blog about fear: how unschooling is a journey through letting go of our own parental fears and trusting our children to live well. It is. And it never ends.

Back to what I learned from this art show, I watched my father make a parenting discovery, too. He came to see some of the work in my studio, before I installed it in the gallery, and had very little to say. It was clear he was uncomfortable, or at least not very interested. When the show opened he came to the gallery, and walked around awkwardly. So I prodded him about it. He told me he just doesn't consider this art. My fear of failure made me want to run away crying, but there were other people around so I stood and listened. He said it isn't something he'd like to hang on his wall. Why would I put something in a gallery that people wouldn't hang on their walls? He didn't think it would be well received. And on top of that I knew he was grappling with the fact that I was about to read some slightly alarming stories on the opening night in an open-front painted wedding dress with polyester pubic hair peeking out the front. I was afraid of embarrassing him. But I did it anyway. I did this strange costumed reading, and the 60 or so people in attendance seemed a bit stunned, but apparently some of them congratulated him.

The next day my Pappa walked down to my house and came in, only to tell me that people loved the show, and he was proud of me. "So what changed?" I asked him. And he told me he had been afraid, before the opening. Afraid for me.

And this is when I realized that the fear is never going to go away. Not ever. My children can be 38 years old and planning not-very-daring feats of social misconduct, and ... I will still be terrified for them.

Sometimes my heart is closed in a cage of fear. Maybe patience helps me listen. Maybe listening helps me hear the voices of my children, reassuring. And maybe this understanding can help me to have compassion for my own parents, who are still, after all, parenting too.

how and why to use technology in a forest school

One of the draws of forest schools is the fact that many are 'unplugged'. At a time when our culture is becoming exponentially more digitally connected, we're noticing some pitfalls of being too connected. We are seeking ways to ground our thoughts and experiences, often literally by going out on the land and leaving technological devices behind. I think this is great, but I also think technology has a place in forest schools.

At Wild Art you'll definitely notice fewer electronic devices, which isn't even so much of an expressed rule as a matter of practicality when we're traipsing around over logs, through creeks and swamps, and up and down trees. We're too busy using our senses to bother with devices that require hands and mental focus. But there are exceptions.

It's important to me that wilderness is not just an escape from the rest of our lives, but that it is integral to our lives. That means that we have to let wilderness into our homes and technology from our homes into the wilderness. This way our thoughts and learning have no boundaries.

At Wild Art, a whole-world view and self-direction are paramount. Of all the things I hope people will learn at Wild Art, I hope most that they leave with a sense that their own engagement with the world matters. And technology is a part of our world. Banning it would be futile, and worse still, would force it into dark corners, where there is little support. So just as I welcome any conversation topic during the time we share together, I welcome technology.

Watches, visual aids, cell-phones and cameras are by far the most common devices among the kids I work with. Watches allow the kids to keep track of their own time, and sometimes help them understand the world around them (movement of the earth; weather, and even reflection and light as they play with the sun bouncing off their wrists). Visual aids are usually brought by me. I have a nice pair of binoculars, and flashlights are sometimes helpful, but the best of them is a pocket-sized 60x microscope that I carry around for looking at anything and everything that suits our fancy. Cell phones aren't that common. Many kids have them, but leave them behind for fear of damaging or losing them in the woods. I don't have one myself, and although occasionally someone pulls one out to check the time, take a photo or arrange a ride home, I rarely see them. I think that reception is pretty poor when we're in the forest out here, anyway. And cameras.

I love cameras. I document Wild Art days myself at least once a month, and sometimes the kids get involved with cameras, too. Getting new perspectives on the things we look at is always a great way to engage, and using cameras can be an excellent way to find and explore new vantage points. Camera-use also often means thinking about communication: Not only does it matter what we are communicating with our photos, but how does the photo-set up influence the viewer, and how does our own perspective influence the photo? All of these questions (and many others) come up and scatter widely into other areas of life. Even just the social interactions that arise from sharing our vantage points, our technological ideas and understanding, and our creativity are valuable. And this is all when the technology is on the side. What about when it's at the core of the group's inquiry?

Recently one of the Wild Art groups made a movie. It was a natural path to take, since their engagement had been mostly social, comedic, and with a lot of talk about video games they had been playing at home. So I embraced it and suggested movie-making. They spent the next four weeks developing and filming their funny idea, and this is the result:

 

(Thanks to these wonderful teens for allowing me to share their movie!)

They also presented their movie in the woods, using a projector, a king-size sheet, about a hundred and fifty feet of extension cords, and some ropes, sticks and rocks to set it all up. It seemed to me like a fabulous combination of technology and wilderness.

But what about the wilderness? Doesn't all this technology take away from our engagement with it? Maybe. But it also deepens our engagement. When we work and live in the wilderness, we can't help but be deeply familiar with it. Just like you know the feeling of your favourite pillow under your head, you know the different feelings of sitting on various types of moss and bark if you've spent enough time doing so. You know what species of tree branches will work best to hold up your bed-sheet movie screen, and what age of fern-fronds will be strong enough to tie a knot with. You know which twigs you can break off for convenience, and which are still alive and better left alone. You not only become familiar with the species of plants, insects and other animals that you cross paths with in the wild, but you become aware of their habits, their habitat, and the way these things matter and intersect with your own life. You will be an integral, engaged, and conscientious part of the world. And after all, isn't that what we use technology for?