Am I from planet Mars?

Just finished a challenging course outdoors, my first with an all-American adult audience. Challenging not quite because of the material covered, but because I had to fight lots of my own demons. I realized that after some twenty plus years living in the US - I still felt inadequate in communicating in English. I felt again like a newly arrived immigrant from planet Mars. Why? Are we forever plagued with self-doubt if there's no land to call one's own?

It's the little cultural differences that struck me and wouldn't let me move beyond them. Participants not wanting to be close together, seeking solitary time instead. People not wanting my communal blanket, my tables and paint tubes brought to share, my Dale Carnegie inspired chitter-chatter about their everyday lives.

When indoors with a Russian-speaking group it's all about wanting to have good company, sharing some therapeutic insights into our lives and the world outside, taking my lead into exploring how our creative outcomes tell us something about things needing attention in real life.

Or is this just two sides of my own personality wanting to fight it out, clashing in their goals? Part of me wants a great tight group of friends to share in the experience of finding myself. Yet, another part wants some alone time, to reflect and come to my own conclusions, without someone's five cents in the process. Was this experience merely a mirror into how we all struggle to find our true self?

Barcelona as inspiration - teaching children to view the world differently

I was lucky to finally make it back to Barcelona, Spain, a city where so many greats had started, and which even today proves to be a place of inspiration and innovation.

What had impressed me the most this time around (last time of course Antoni Gaudi was the focus) was the Fundacio Joan Miro, which I had missed on my last trip to the city.

I was especially taken with the incredible accomplishments of its education department. In the course of a few hours that we spent there, there were at least 4 different school groups passing through, beginning with pre-school aged children, and all the way to high schoolers. I went to the museum not only because I'm fond of Miro's work, but also because I was unsure as to how to approach Joan Miro with kids. How does one introduce abstract art with ease to different aged students?

What I had learned was that it's best to let them interact with the work as much as possible and use their imaginations to complete its meaning. Each of the tours I  had encountered, and unfortunately my Spanish was lacking to fully understand them, was nothing like I had ever seen in museums in US, where museum docents are simply being informative. Tour guides sought to encourage each student to communicate what he/she thought they were looking at, meanwhile carefully extracting what it was the kids were feeling as spectators while engaging with each piece, or color, or symbol.

We also spent a bit of time watching a video on Miro's life and work, and his goals for the foundation. His main idea behind the endeavor was to teach people a new way of looking at things. I believe the goal is certainly being accomplished there and should serve as a motto for every art teacher...inspiring kids to view the world through their own lense...

Template projects for children

So of course my imagination doesn't run wild all the time and I have to resort to checking various project ideas on the web. Also because I'm strong in some things and haven't used other media in some time - I go ahead and try various suggested lessons on my students.

Perhaps I deal with a much younger audience and simply miss the point, but I'm getting more and more frustrated with the prevalence of follow me instructions. If the main goal of an art teacher is to develop creative thinking - then why do all Monet ponds in one class have to end up looking almost identical?


Yes, if we're raising robots, then they should simply follow step 1, 2, 15, 20. But with excited kids full of raw emotions shouldn't their imagination play a certain part in the process, shouldn't there be an element of media exploration, experimentation, flight of imagination? So what if it isn't a pond with water lillies a la Monet that will look perfect for when the parents come in to look at it? What if it's a farm, or a zoo, or a cave with dragons? At least you see real personal interest there and not a follow along manual.

And yes, I know that with age children's minds cannot roam as freely and they become as rooted as adults in the real world. But perhaps just in art class they can get in touch with their inner selves and be kids just a little longer?

What I won't do...or bylaws for my teaching proposition

When I was 5, I started to get into drawing. I found napkins of all kinds and drew little dolls on them in various costumes. My grandfather would make up where those costumes would be from, as in - this is the customary dress of the Georgians, or - that one is from the Republic of Congo, etc. I was ecstatic and wanted nothing less than to one day become a fashion designer.

Then, at the age of 15, seeing how my dream was so persistent, my mom found me an art teacher. He, probably self-interestedly or unknowingly, declared that in order to be a fashion designer, I need to learn how to paint everything - from still lives to portraits to landscapes, and so I did. And when the day came for portfolio reviews, I was welcomed with all kinds of scholarships and bells and whistles to different art schools, but none of the fashion design schools,. Apparently for that I needed to learn how to sew and actually present dresses, etc. What about the factories where that actually gets done? But whatever...

And so I had no choice but to become an artist. My official art schooling began. It was incessant figure and gesture drawings and anatomical studies interspersed with occasional self portraits, close copying of the Renaissance masters (no wonder I hate the Renaissance), and chiaroscuro based on photographs. Only once in my 4 years in undergrad were we given an assignment to paint the stunning Ithaca landscape, and only one course introduced me to various painting media. And of course not a word about the contemporary art market, or art careers, or what the hell you're supposed to do with your life once you get out. And I hated art school with all my heart - it just seemed so irrelevant, and dated, and exclusive. It simply pretended that all great art was somewhere in the books and slides and not all around us...

And then I did my Master studies and it was even more dissapointing. It was a degree in Arts Administration, but it pretended that only part of the art world existed, the one where everyone is poor and in dire need of fundraising and it made sure that the real art market wasn't touched upon. As if there're no auction houses, or art insurance or art fairs and successful galleries and artists. Meanwhile, I was managing a thriving art gallery.

So I volunteered in a community arts complex just to get back to the roots, teaching kids art - and yet again - arts and crafts galore: making Valentine's Day cards, and teachers sculpting pretty little things for the kids so that parents think their kids talents are advancing.

Well, enough complaining. Here's my proposition. How about we combine it all? Not just a museum school where students walk with sketch books and pretend to be the next Van Gogh, and not just boring academic still life, or fat nude models, or long stories about how this genius reached his peak of creativity? But a program where every class gives you a sense that everything is connected? That the world around us is forever changing and it's stunning in all its seasons and moods? That Picasso stole from the Africans, and that we can paint like the Egyptians if we wanted to, or like the Japanese with their screens and no three point perspectives, or the Indians with their stunning gold illuminated manuscripts? What if we could create new designs through learning about ornaments on mosques? What if students would see local galleries and art fairs in addition to walks through dark museums? What if they designed costumes for the next Nutcracker like Chagall and Dali did for current plays? What if they practice grafiti art? Somehow, especially now, when we become more and more removed from the natural world, sitting behind our computer desks and residing in virtual realities...our kids need to get back to the roots...

Adding to Adam Lanza's trail of discussions

It seems like the whole world is discussing the motives of Adam Lanza and other problem children who are at risk for hurting our society. It's time that I add my five cents towards the ongoing discussion from an educational perspective. A mother who comes from a creative world, and a wife to someone who is purely analytical, I find it very difficult sometimes to defend my point of view in allowing and promoting children's creative urges.

It seems with the focus on math and sciences and incessant testing on those subjects in our school systems that our society is so preoccupied with training robots that poor children don't get a chance to feel and react to the world around them. I know of parents who prefer to not read fairy tales to their children, (to not cloud their minds with surreal imagery). But what about fostering their imagination or learning valuable lessons about morals, human psychology, etc? Most extracurricular activities are aimed at bettering the chances of ultimate college applications, aka sport sections galore and extra math labs from the age of 4. There's lessening interest in the arts: music, writing, sculpting, painting, theater...and many schools are completely taking creative arts out of their curricula. If those exist, it's only to develop fine motor skills, expose to various options and materials, but not to treat the left side of the brain seriously, not to discuss art production as a way of learning about the inner and outside world.

Yet, as famous child development psychologist, Viktor Lowenfeld notes: "It is interesting to note that youngsters who have run into problems with the law and been put into institutions under the label of "delinquents" have apparently not been able to express themselves creatively".

Judging from my own experience, I paint best when I'm angry at the world. All these negative emotions are being put to creative use. The act of artmaking is allowing me to calm down, process my feelings and regain a trail of logical thought. No wonder art therapy has become such a hit over the last few decades. It opens doors to our subconscious and kids who aren't yet able to express themselves with words, are given a chance to let it all out, explain themselves by other means so that others could listen in. If only Adam Lanza's mother knew what her son was suffering from, if he had a way to calm down, he could have been a genius, a hidden gem in our midst. Jackson Pollock is considered the most influential Amerian artist of the 20th century...

Art Basel Miami for kids

I just returned from our annual trip to Miami. First week of December is the week of Art Basel Miami, the largest art fair in the country, and a time for art craziness, inspiration galore and an opportunity to somehow connect in my head everything that I am and would like to contribute to the art world. Earlier in the fall I launched a website for Plein Air Art Academy, and am now promoting it and waiting on enrollment. Therefore, this time Miami wasn't just a research on dealers and their offerings, or new talent discovery, or pure art appreciation for personal inspiration. It was also an opportunity to view a child's reaction to contemporary art. It's certainly an overwhelming affair but while the attention span was still there, sculpture was incredibly captivating to my four year old, much more so than two-dimensional art. Discussions were very engaging and some incredible interpretations were offered by him that I could not have arrived at on my own. Though absolutely spent in two and a half hours, he demanded on our way home that we return year after year, as he enjoyed this activity of art watching and discussing so much.That of course was pure music to my ears.This statement is also very much in line with his stage of development where imaginative play is at its height. It is quite fascinating though to let his creative mind roam and I'm thrilled we could be on the same page while engaging in my favorite activity.