FA+
Shop
What is Art
18 years ago
Was reminded about an incident during my summer volunteer sessions as the local library pre-school arts-craft classes.
We had the kids doing a simple abstract method: pour various colors onto the paper and fold in half, smooth it out with your hand
Creates very interesting blotchs that can represent almost anything a child sees and one boy (5) excitedly came up to me saying he saw a a dinosaur or something in his picture. Truthfully I didn't see it but instead of disagreeing with him asked what else do you see? and like the other volunteers said, it was as though I light went off before he run off to think about it.
I found out later that he supposedly had several problems, hyperactivity being the biggest one and yet I distracted him from a tantrum before it even started.
Well that boy reminded me of 2nd grade when we did the same thing but instead of being distracted, the teacher (Sub) disagreed with me, so I threw the tantrum he would have. That was over 30 years ago and yet I still remember it almost as clearly today as the day afterwards.
That was when I learned the most important thing about art. It's personal to the artitst. Our vision, feelings and emotions get wrapped up in what we create and although you can be taught techniques that may allow you to achieve the effect/look that you want, that is all anyone can do for an artist. Otherwise it's no longer art and becomes impersonal and mechanical, loosing the heart and soul of the artist and to me that's the greatest pity of all, loosing the heart and soul from our art.
We had the kids doing a simple abstract method: pour various colors onto the paper and fold in half, smooth it out with your hand
Creates very interesting blotchs that can represent almost anything a child sees and one boy (5) excitedly came up to me saying he saw a a dinosaur or something in his picture. Truthfully I didn't see it but instead of disagreeing with him asked what else do you see? and like the other volunteers said, it was as though I light went off before he run off to think about it.
I found out later that he supposedly had several problems, hyperactivity being the biggest one and yet I distracted him from a tantrum before it even started.
Well that boy reminded me of 2nd grade when we did the same thing but instead of being distracted, the teacher (Sub) disagreed with me, so I threw the tantrum he would have. That was over 30 years ago and yet I still remember it almost as clearly today as the day afterwards.
That was when I learned the most important thing about art. It's personal to the artitst. Our vision, feelings and emotions get wrapped up in what we create and although you can be taught techniques that may allow you to achieve the effect/look that you want, that is all anyone can do for an artist. Otherwise it's no longer art and becomes impersonal and mechanical, loosing the heart and soul of the artist and to me that's the greatest pity of all, loosing the heart and soul from our art.
Spearwing
~spearwing
Good for you. Such small things can be important for the rest of our lives; and art is so often taken for granted and crushed down to conformity, like kids are. Emotion is not to be feared.
