ALT/space

There is a photograph of the late artist Francis Bacon sitting on a small wooden chair and appearing vaguely out of sorts. His surroundings are, at first glance, curious - he seems to be surrounded by garbage. Upon closer inspection, one can see a large circular paint splattered mirror behind him. It hangs over a low shelf jammed with cardboard boxes, small canvases, and newspaper clippings. Atop the shelf sit bottles of turpentine, jars of paint, and a dozen or so coffee cans from which protrude a thorny army of paintbrush handles. Paint is smeared on the walls. The viewer eventually realizes that Bacon is sitting in the middle of his art studio. For Bacon, “His own mess had some kind of order that he understood” [1].

My students thrive when they have a role in constructing the structure and determining the routine. In the back of my classroom we have two carts that contain a variety of art supplies. Surrounding the carts are four folding tables. The cart area does not look like a place of structured learning; rather it appears as a wild assortment of paint, brushes, scissors, glue, markers, drop cloths, clumps of string, and torn bits of wax paper. Teachers do not manage this space, nor is it dictated by a curriculum. This space belongs to the children. There is no set agenda or protocol and the students are allowed to engage with the space as they see fit, often blurring the boundaries between art, science, and play. As with Francis Bacon’s studio, this area contains an order that children understand.

During lessons that do not involve this environment, we always have one or two students who will quietly get up as if to sharpen a pencil only to segue to the back of the room and begin picking through various items in the carts. Soon another student will see this, pretend to go to the bathroom but instead make his or her way back to the art space as well. Like honeybees scouting for nesting sites, most students find a way to the carts throughout the day[2]. Although fascinated by their self-initiated creations, I am compelled to shepherd them back to their seats in an effort to ensure they are present for the direct instruction portion of the lesson.

After seeing my students thrive in a self-motivated setting, I decided to see what would happened if I let the students continue their creative investigations unimpeded. As expected, during our direct instruction time two students made their way to the carts. Two other students brought a few supplies back to their seats. One created patterns out of colored duct tape and the other stealthily mixed water, food coloring, and silver glitter in a paper cup. By recess, the swarm picked up in intensity. A lively group of students surrounded the carts and rummaged through the supplies, using their “free time” to essentially continue their education.

When the green paint ran out, a trio of girls began to replenish it by mixing blue and yellow. Likewise, they mixed blue and red to make purple. As they continued to experiment, they stumbled upon a pleasing array of original colors to which they decided to give names. Separately, but in the same space, another student was carefully adding drops of food coloring onto generous globs of Elmer’s glue. She then added glitter and used a toothpick to mix the concoction to create a kaleidoscopic effect. A third student dyed foot-long lengths of string by soaking them in tiny vials filled with food coloring. She then fished each one out with a tool fashioned from a small piece of copper wire and set them to dry on sheets of wax paper. Seeing this, the Elmer’s glue girl began to search for the vials and found them in a bin that I set aside for future science experiments.

Once the science bin was breached, the swarm picked up intensity. When a new hive is chosen, the bee scouts signal a final “buzz run” [2] which triggers a mass exodus to the new hive. Similar to a buzz run, lids were quickly flipped off of the remaining bins as children grabbed test tubes, graduated cylinders, pipettes, and other assorted items. This sudden unorthodox use of equipment allocated for science projects made me uneasy. I worried that the materials might end up lost or destroyed. I worried that an administrator or parent might stop by and disapprove of this unconventional use of materials. But I remained steadfast in my small-scale research project and allowed the buzz to develop.

By the end of the day, the girl who was dying string decided to integrate her idea into a science fair experiment. The group of students who were mixing their own hues ended up bottling samples to sell online under the name Professor Paints. The girl who had first found the vials continued to explore their aesthetic potentials by adding objects to the food coloring: tiny spirals of wire, bits of pencil eraser, and a dusting of glitter. She ended up creating a series of diaphanous works that were at once strange and sublime.

Every day I am torn between allowing the students to go to the carts when they feel inspired to create and making sure they remain seated in order to get the assigned classwork completed. Creative ways of thinking do not align with standardization or predetermined outcomes. Dr. James Rolling describes those who seek a collective self-knowledge as ones who are “willing to slog through the muddy ambiguities” [3] for a true educational experience. When there is a “controlled messiness…the wisdom of the hive emerges” [2]. Self-initiated experiences allow each student to indulge in his or her own project while also promoting a creative environment that benefits the whole classroom.

In his chaotic studio Francis Bacon created paintings that are now considered to be contemporary masterworks [4]. Students who thrive in a creative learning paradigm flourish in the midst of messy spaces and uncertain outcomes.

This narrative was originally prepared for inclusion in the upcoming book “Swarm Intelligence” by Dr. James Haywood Rolling, Jr. and published through Palgrave Macmillan.

References
[1] Edwards, J. & Ogden P. (2001). 7 Reece Mews: Francis Bacon’s Studio. NY: Thames & Hudson.

[2] Miller, P. (2010). The smart swarm: How understanding flocks, schools, and colonies   can make us better at communicating, decision making, and getting things done.  New York: Penguin.

[3] Rolling, J. H. (2009). Invisibility and in/di/visuality: The relevance of art education in curriculum theorizing. Power and Education, 1 (1), 96-110.

[4] Peppiatt, M. (2008). Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma. NY: Skyhorse   Publishing.

David Rufo is an artist/teacher/researcher working on his PhD at Syracuse University in Art Education. With seventeen years experience as a general classroom fourth grade teacher, David’s current research interest is the self-initiated creativity of children in a child-centered environment. In addition to being a full-time teacher, David is also an adjunct instructor at Syracuse University where he has created and taught a course titled, Art Educators as Contemporary Artists. His most recent article titled, “Building Forts and Drawing on Walls: Fostering Student Initiated Creativity Inside and Outside the Elementary Classroom,” was published in the May 2012 issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Art Education. His current paintings incorporate watercolor, ink, and antique letterpress to examine children’s literature. Contact David

Also by David Rufo in ALT/space:
When Checking Out is Checking In
Technique Schmechnique: Why Kids Don’t Need to Be Taught How to Use a Paintbrush
Masking Tape: The Artist’s Urge to Wrap
Colored Ice: A Child’s Self-Initiated Foray into Ephemeral Art
Drawing on Tabletops
Ophelia’s Fort
Paint Bomb Girls
Snowfall

I recently taught a workshop on Dramatic Improvisation for a Comedy Festival focused on Improvisation and Stand-Up comedy for adults. Mine was the first workshop of the day (a Saturday), and I had anticipated a small turnout of people, mostly men, who might resist all but the hilarious and shallow. Why? Because Dramatic Improvisation only works with deep vulnerability and an almost intimate relationship with a scene partner, who may be a stranger. It’s hard to do, and if the commitment to the scene partner is not complete, the scene is unsatisfying. It’s also not necessarily funny (although it can be), and has the potential to be beautiful and raw. Kinda doesn’t fit Saturday Improv Comedy Fest, but that’s what I was asked to teach.

Well, it’s true that people dribbled in and it’s true that they were men with one late exception, BUT they were receptive, worked hard, took direction, and did some poignant, funny, breath-stopping work that was character-driven rather than joke-driven. They took direction and critique and grew in awareness and, yes, intimacy.

I have given this outcome and my own prejudice a great deal of thought in the days since. I typically teach Dramatic Improv and Contact Improv (another deeply personal and wonderful improv form that is movement based) to teenagers, and the hard part is always inching them towards the letting go of their outer walls, helping them to launch themselves into a moment where they are vulnerable co-stewards of an intimacy of emotion and raw honesty made public.

To be clear, I don’t mean ‘intimacy’ in the sense of sexuality or sex scenes. In Contact Improv, the intimacy is both physical and emotional; students’ bodies stay in contact as they discover and apply what are, in essence, planetary and geographical physics. They must learn to not be self-supporting, but rather co-steward as they move through poses hunting for balance, center-point, centripetal force of the unit which invariably puts them as individuals in a place where they would fall if they let go or tried to use brute force instead of trust, vulnerability, and connectivity.

There is always huge fear, huge resistance, and then unfettered and profound joy when they nail it. I often take as my partner the largest or least physical comfortable person—I am not very big—in order to demonstrate that it will be okay. I will have the large young man do the pose with me where he ends up standing on my knees as we both lean back, his arm extended, like flying …. because relationships are not about who is stronger, who is bigger, who has what qualities as an individual, but rather how those qualities can be used to find the balance, the center-point, the connected but turning planets, the tectonic forces of people. After this body work, we do an exercise where each person slowly and carefully touches the air about an inch from their partner’s body (with the back of their hand, not the front) in slow consciousness and respect. Then we do scene work.

Although the process of inching teens towards intimacy, vulnerability, and co-stewardship is different when I teach Dramatic Improv (different exercises), the outcome is the same—surprise, elation, pride, bravery, and an enriched capacity for calm and courageous openness. It’s that trusting co-caring that relies on the relationship and not the self; it is intimacy. Inevitably the scene work is extraordinary, regardless if they ever met their scene partner before, regardless if their scene partner is someone they would even like under other circumstances. Inevitably the performers carry forward a heightened awareness of other and interpersonal bonds, and the realization that they can create something truly incredible through this practice…onstage AND in life.

Why was I surprised by my group of adults? Because for teens, the resistance grows of the newness of true co-caring and the ‘terrifyingness’ of such intense vulnerability, and I had presumed that most people who do Stand-Up or joke-type comic improv would be focused on the self rather than the other. Yet in the workshop, they moved more quickly through the steps of deepening vulnerability and emotional intimacy than the teens. Why? Oftentimes, dealing with other targeted performance skills, adults are less willing to take risks than teens. I wonder if, perhaps, the value and impact of a vulnerable, co-stewarding practice was so great in their past (on stage? In real life? In actual relationships?) that they were able, in 50 minutes with people they had never met, practice the art of intimacy and create fabulously engaging Improvisation.

Regardless of the underlying reason, it was an incredible experience for me to work with them and have my assumptions turned upside down, and I will carry this learning forward with me to other times when I am teaching intimacy in performance practice—as something to be mindful of in the workshop participants’ relationships to the material and with each other …. but also in my relationships with them.

Artistic Director of Shearwater Productions, Holly Adams is a long time mask maker, stage combat choreographer, and performer with a focus on physical theatre styles. Holly also loves being a teaching artist! Whether she is giving a master class in NYC or at a college, or creating arts-a-the-core inquiry based curricula for elementary and high schools, she is loving every minute of it. She is the recipient of ATA’s Teaching Artist Service to the Field award for 2009-2010,a member of APA, Ed Bloggers, and a board member for NYSTEA. An interview with Holly is here

Also in ALT/space by Holly Adams:
Working with Children on the Asperger-Autism Spectrum
Rigor and Joy
Don’t Stop Believing

Serendipitous opportunities are part of the working repertoire for artists. In a documentary about Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, John explained how he “stumbled upon” the opening chord progression for the title track [1]. The album sold more than 31 million copies and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, yet the music began as an accidental surprise.

In the early part of the twentieth century the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky stumbled on the idea of abstract painting. One day as he entered his studio at twilight he saw an image he described as “a mysterious picture, on which I could discern only forms and colors and whose content was incomprehensible” [2]. Moments later he realized it was one of his paintings standing on its side against a wall.

Writers also experience this stumbling upon of ideas. During a recent interview with Charlie Rose, author George Saunders described his working method as a largely uncharted process where the writer, the reader, and the character are “finding it out together” [3].

Ideally, fortuitousness should also play a role in how teachers go about teaching and how children go about learning but how can spontaneous creativity exist in a rigid learning environment filled with scheduling demands and narrowly focused itineraries?  In our fifth grade classroom, I often find that the most creative endeavors appear when students seem disconnected from the scheduled lesson or activity. I have found over the course of this school year that when we thought students were checking out of schoolwork, they were in fact checking into creative engagements. I always found it difficult to simply describe these students as “unengaged” because they were, in fact, deeply engaged in the creative process.

Ethan (a pseudonym) is intelligent, insightful, gentle, and kind. In our fifth grade classroom Ethan usually chose a corner near a window to sit. Ethan would typically enter into a muted conversation with a friend until directed by a teacher to attend to a lesson. Ethan was also content to sit alone, chin in hand, lost in thought. It was at these times that it was especially difficult to engage him in a class activity for a prolonged period. When asked directly, Ethan would agree to solve a multiplication problem, read a short passage, or conduct a science experiment. But his attentions to classroom expectations were brief, and soon he would be talking to another student, or as he once told me, “daydreaming of what I will do when I get home” (Personal communication, January 24, 2013).

During these times Ethan would also produce creative works. If it happened to be snack time, he would use Cheerios to write his name in large block letters. Once during math he fashioned a miniature basketball hoop out of masking tape and a magic marker taking turns as he and a friend shot baskets using wadded up pieces of paper. Ethan was also known for ironic modes of expression. Earlier this year using masking tape to create moustaches and beards became a popular activity. Ethan joined in but instead of simply attaching tape to his face to mimic facial hair, he created a pirate beard by writing “arg!, arg, arg, arg” on a Post-It note and attaching it to his chin.

Louisa (a pseudonym) was a student who had difficulty with transitioning according to our schedule. No matter what was on the agenda, she would immediately skip to the back and begin to rifle through a cart where we kept various supplies such as strands of copper wire, spools of fishing line, boxes of paper clips, rolls of tape, scissors, reams of paper, bottles of tempera paint, and a pitcher full of brushes.

Louisa always had a project she was working on. She would take an armful of supplies back to her table and begin making sculptures, banners, trinkets, drawings, paintings, lists, toys, tools, and models, always with a wide grin on her face.  It would take a great effort to coax her into putting the supplies aside to attend to a lesson. But once that was accomplished, within a few minutes she would be back at the cart gathering more materials to continue her creations.

Louisa’s work ran the gamut. She could use water-based markers to create expressionistic sunsets or masking tape to form weapons to ward off imaginary foes such as her “Monster Hunting Whip.” Once she fashioned a kite from copy paper and tape that she spent an entire blustery recess attempting to fly.

William (a pseudonym) was happiest when he was drawing a diagram or molding a form. It was uncanny what he could fashion out of a single piece of paper and a few inches of tape.  As a talented math and science student, William could easily do the work assigned to him. Whether he did it or not was another matter. It was difficult to predict what lesson or activity William would respond to or how much he actually knew during the times he would resist doing his schoolwork. It was equally impossible to know what might pique his interest and have him suddenly excited about a project. However, when left to his own devices, William would usually begin making sculpture out of paper. William’s paper models bore evidence of his prodigious talent. Ray guns, boats, or miniature cities seemed to flow naturally from William as he folded, cut, and taped.

When I found a chance to interview the students about their self-initiated creations they offered detailed back stories and rationales. Many times I found myself thinking that these types of creative occurrences were indeed more important and more meaningful than the day’s math or science lesson. Yes, teaching academic skills is an important aspect of the schooling experience, especially if kids are going to be ready for the next grade level. But I wonder how many kids will become adept at long division at the cost of never stumbling upon the great American novel, the idea of abstract painting, or writing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

References
[1] Smeaton, B. (Director). (2001, November 6). Classic Albums: Elton John - GoodbyeYellow Brick Road. UK: Eagle Rock Entertainment.
[2] Lindsay, K.C. & Vergo, P. (Eds.) (1994). Kandinsky: Complete writings on art.  Boston: Da Capo Press.
[3] Vega, Y. (Producer). (2013, January 29). Charlie Rose [Television Broadcast]. New York, NY: PBS.

David Rufo is an artist/teacher/researcher working on his PhD at Syracuse University in Art Education. With seventeen years experience as a general classroom fourth grade teacher, David’s current research interest is the self-initiated creativity of children in a child-centered environment. In addition to being a full-time teacher, David is also an adjunct instructor at Syracuse University where he has created and taught a course titled, Art Educators as Contemporary Artists. His most recent article titled, “Building Forts and Drawing on Walls: Fostering Student Initiated Creativity Inside and Outside the Elementary Classroom,” was published in the May 2012 issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Art Education. His current paintings incorporate watercolor, ink, and antique letterpress to examine children’s literature. Contact David

Also by David Rufo in ALT/space:
Technique Schmechnique: Why Kids Don’t Need to Be Taught How to Use a Paintbrush
Masking Tape: The Artist’s Urge to Wrap
Colored Ice: A Child’s Self-Initiated Foray into Ephemeral Art
Drawing on Tabletops
Ophelia’s Fort
Paint Bomb Girls
Snowfall

I am a performer, playwright and Teaching Artist with a long history and much training in working with people whose perceptual/interactive experience of the world is on the fringe of typical association. In 2012, I was hired by 3 Tier Consulting to do theater workshops with children on the Asperger-Autism spectrum in Watertown and Fort Drum. Most of these children come from families with a spouse in the active armed forces, oftentimes also facing a possible move to another base; although we ran 2 sets of 2 weekly sessions about six months apart, only boy was in both sets.

Fabulously enough, targeted performance skills are targeted performance skills, regardless of whether the workshop participants are professional adult actors or children with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Working on a stage-sharing Ensemble, creating and understanding dialogue, unpacking meaning, developing a gesture repertoire or honing gestural language are things ALL actors must constantly revisit, which means that ‘Going to Acting Class’ is something an eleven-year-old boy can talk about at school with pride. It is also a context that can comfortably absorb people with a wide range of social skills, including typically-developing children.

We had two groups, one for children from four to seven years old, and one for children (who turned out to be all boys) from nine to thirteen years old. The younger group had children all over the Asperger-Autism map (I have found that ‘spectrum’ implies a linearality that is not really helpful or accurate in a performance context), and the older group was made up of boys in with various manifestations of Asperger’s Syndrome.

With the younger group, I chose the theme of Weather, specifically wind and snow, because it was late fall/early winter, and kids ‘on the spectrum’ in particular respond well to themed structure. I knew that they would need the space and a variety of concrete visual, sound and text clues to guide implicitly, so I created a circle with one “opening” made up of soft blankets with differing colors and designs, folded to create a large ‘mat’, knowing the children would gravitate toward them a places to be, lie down, watch, etc, and that they would choose the design and color best for them.

In the middle of the circle were picture books (fiction and non-fiction) and some magazine photographs about winter, as well as crayons, markers, and paper. As children drifted in, they were given the opportunity to draw, listen, read, look, or talk about the weather and the coming winter. Once we were all there, we shifted from drawing, etc to recounting to imagining we were going to go outside and play in the snow.

Each child in turn (the idea of waiting to take your turn and knowing what the appropriate social cue is for that is HUGE) suggested something we had to wear or bring in order to go outside and play (reinforcing life skills). Once we all agreed we were ready, we got off our mats and pretended to do snow things—skate around the circle to music, sit on our mats and go ‘sledding’, make snow angels, and even rip up paper and throw it into the air for it to fall.

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On an online education forum an art teacher asked: “Can students be taught to use paintbrushes so that the bristles aren’t ruined?” I replied with a variety of suggestions: students could experiment with paintbrushes or employ alternate methods of paint application via fingers, sticks, paper towels, or squeegees. The responses from other educators endorsed traditional applications rather than experimental or unconventional methods of applying paint. Some recommended that students use their brushes “gently,” “respectfully,” and “carefully” in order to generate work that was “nice” and “proper.” In their opinion, students should first be taught to use paintbrushes in appropriate ways. Then, they must practice these techniques so the resulting artwork was not “messy” or “bad.” One teacher even implied that students who were “caught” using brushes improperly should have their painting privileges taken away. I felt the tenor of the posts was summed up by this comment: “care of the tool is paramount.”

I believe the emphasis on the technical aspects of watercolor painting has limited the ways in which watercolor painting can be taught. After perusing the online galleries of past Scholastic Art Award winners it becomes evident that the paintings of high school students generally fall into a handful of stylistic approaches and genres. Similarly, the majority of artists who received awards from the American Watercolor Society contain realistic renderings or decorative abstracts with tightly controlled brushwork. It appears that much of art education is “discipline-centered” rather than “student-centered” [1] where “specific art object exemplars that have been so designated by individuals with expert status” [2] drive instruction. However, as art educator Karen Hamblen warned “focusing on what is deemed to represent the aesthetic heights of a culture could give students a distorted view of art and a view that has little resemblance to the world in which they live” [2].

The German artist Emil Nolde” represented the archetype of the Expressionist painter and his creation” [3]. In a catalogue description of a 1940 watercolor painting by Nolde, Laura Klar Phillips wrote: “Nolde created images of unmatched beauty and poetry, [with] vibrant colors flowing into one another and saturating the page in fluid, transparent pools” [4]. She described the painting’s “extravagant, emotive displays of color” and the piece as evidence of Nolde’s “great technical assurance and expressive vigor” [4]. I had a similar reaction as I recently watched a group of my fourth and fifth grade students creating watercolor paintings.

I was curious to see how my students would approach watercolor painting if given the freedom and agency to use the materials as they wished. One Friday afternoon I offered my students the option of watercolor painting during their independent learning time. Instead of requiring them to first practice a specific technique or “imitate visual exemplars by other artists” [5] I made a brief announcement, placed the materials on a table, and walked away.

A group of students quickly gathered around and without any prior instruction picked up brushes, cracked opened the plastic boxes containing pans of watercolors, and began to paint. The children employed a variety of methods. Some held their brushes in tightly clenched fists; others gripped the brushes between their middle and ring fingers, a few balanced their brushes between thumb and forefinger. Brushes were wielded like sabers attacking the paper with frenzied precision. One student, her brush loaded and dripping with water quickly stroked a pan of Cobalt Blue then tapped the tip onto the paper creating a deep, thick pools which she blotted with a tissue, creating a mottled effect. A second student held her brush perpendicular to the paper and made deliberate strokes, forming an abstract branch-like structure. A third used both hands to spin a brush, handle upright, with the bristle end jammed into the paint. She then placed her face inches from the paper, and produced quick abbreviated strokes.

The brushes were pushed, pulled, spun, swirled, dipped, flicked, tapped, whipped, and turned. Paint was dripped, dabbed, poured, puddled, stroked, swept, and scumbled. It felt as if I were watching a highlight reel of modern abstract art.  Some pieces were reminiscent of Kandinsky’s early abstract work.Others contained a pop sensibility. Here a Helen Frankenthalercolor field piece, there a Morris Louis stained work. An Adolph Gottlieb blotch suddenly bumped up against a 1960s era Larry Poons dot and dash piece.

I wish I could paint as they do.

Christie’s auction house estimated the value of Nolde’s painting to be between $300,000 and $500,000. It ended up selling for $698,500. One student gave me six paintings for free as she skipped out the doorway.

References
[1] Bullock, A.L. & Galbraith, L. (1992). Images of art teaching: Comparing the beliefs and practices of two secondary art teachers. Studies in Art Education, 33(2), 86-97.
[2] Hamblen, K.A. (1987). An examination of discipline-based art education issues. Studies in Art Education, 28(2), 68-78.
[3] Bradley, W.S. (1986). Emil Nolde and German expressionism: A prophet in his own land. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.
[4] Phillips, L.K. (2012). Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale November 7,2012. New York, NY: Christie’s.
[5] Lampert, N. (2011). Kindness in the art classroom: Kind thoughts on Stephen Rowland.  London Review of Education, 9(1), 119-121.

David Rufo is an artist/teacher/researcher working on his PhD at Syracuse University in Art Education. With seventeen years experience as a general classroom fourth grade teacher, David’s current research interest is the self-initiated creativity of children in a child-centered environment. In addition to being a full-time teacher, David is also an adjunct instructor at Syracuse University where he has created and taught a course titled, Art Educators as Contemporary Artists. His most recent article titled, “Building Forts and Drawing on Walls: Fostering Student Initiated Creativity Inside and Outside the Elementary Classroom,” was published in the May 2012 issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Art Education. His current paintings incorporate watercolor, ink, and antique letterpress to examine children’s literature. Contact David

Also by David Rufo in ALT/space:
Masking Tape: The Artist’s Urge to Wrap
Colored Ice: A Child’s Self-Initiated Foray into Ephemeral Art
Drawing on Tabletops
Ophelia’s Fort
Paint Bomb Girls
Snowfall