Tuesday, 15 July 2014
Whispers from the Office: Scissors
As promised, I am doing a drawing a day. I have decided to begin by picking items I have in my office. It is interesting how much I learn and also how much more I see I must learn. These scissors seemed an easy choice but in fact were not so straightforward. The lack of detail and the hard lines meant that proportion and the need for accuracy were important because I couldn't rely on details as I would say, with a flower to do the work for me.
The Deception of Words
Summer is in full swing and so there are fewer community enrichment classes, which leaves me trying to continue my studies in other ways.
One way has been to take another MOOC. A few months back I did an excellent one through CALarts, the one I am taking now is through MOMA. 'Art & Activity: Interactive Strategies for Engaging with Art' is aimed at educators, but there is great deal to learn here about creativity and learning even if one is not an educator. Many of the activities described are aimed at communication that is non-discursive, that is, without using words to articulate meaning or feeling.
Some of us, myself definitely included, have learned to rely on the word too much. The word is not always our friend. It is words that convince me not to act, that there's no point, that I am being naive in thinking I can produce anything of value. Words can offer encouragement which we rely on and if we hear anything negative we risk stopping.
With this in mind, I choose to act. My aim is to produce a drawing everyday. Drawing has been my Achille's and I would like it to be something I feel comfortable doing. And I call on educators now. When I child has literacy challenges, that is problems with reading and writing, teachers see this as something serious, for our world is so dependent on these skills. If a child demonstrates little skill in drawing, educators often shrug and claim, that they're not very artistic and little is done about it. Imagine if this were not so, imagine if teachers worked as hard to promote art as they do literacy, how it would change the way we work, see art perhaps live our lives.
One way has been to take another MOOC. A few months back I did an excellent one through CALarts, the one I am taking now is through MOMA. 'Art & Activity: Interactive Strategies for Engaging with Art' is aimed at educators, but there is great deal to learn here about creativity and learning even if one is not an educator. Many of the activities described are aimed at communication that is non-discursive, that is, without using words to articulate meaning or feeling.
Some of us, myself definitely included, have learned to rely on the word too much. The word is not always our friend. It is words that convince me not to act, that there's no point, that I am being naive in thinking I can produce anything of value. Words can offer encouragement which we rely on and if we hear anything negative we risk stopping.
With this in mind, I choose to act. My aim is to produce a drawing everyday. Drawing has been my Achille's and I would like it to be something I feel comfortable doing. And I call on educators now. When I child has literacy challenges, that is problems with reading and writing, teachers see this as something serious, for our world is so dependent on these skills. If a child demonstrates little skill in drawing, educators often shrug and claim, that they're not very artistic and little is done about it. Imagine if this were not so, imagine if teachers worked as hard to promote art as they do literacy, how it would change the way we work, see art perhaps live our lives.
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