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| ART LESSON! |
Today's art lesson went surprisingly well considering I have little to no clue in regards to proper teaching methods. I came up with some half baked idea that we would make mobiles. Sticks were collected from the elfin forest, plugged in the hot glue gun, spread out some paper and paints, and eagerly awaited my willing pupils. Turns out they were much happier to have no direction at all, than to have to comply to whatever it was I thought they SHOULD be doing. I suppose as a kid you are told what to do so much that it's just as valuable to have some one say "yeah do whatever you want!" So I was there as a spirit guide through the sometimes treacherous waters of a good art jam. It was fun for me too. I liked watching them do whatever it was in their mind to do. I started to remember the things I liked to make when I was their age, and busted out the long neglected pop up (cutting slits in a piece of folded paper so you have a section that pops out when you open it). It turned into a veritable paper frenzy!! Luckily they came fully equipped with cupcakes and fizzy water so we could revel in a much needed break before returning to the task at hand. Pictures were painted. Mobiles were made. I asked them 3/4 of the way through, "So, what did you guys learn today?" Low and behold some things I said stuck. They replied, "Sometimes you have to let the pen take you where it wants to," and "Art is about what you're heart wants to say and you have to believe in it." That last one was totally a freestyle riff but I liked it. Its astonishing, the things I say casually to keep them encouraged made some kind of impact. I would like to think if anything, I helped them to trust their artistic intuition a little more...or something. They left feeling good about what they'd made and I took a well deserved nap. I appropriated some of the castoffs and drew stuff over them. Its a nice collaboration I think. It takes the heat off making decisions about color. I just work with what they smeared around.
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| Funkadelic freakout... |
I think I learned as much from watching them work as they could possibly learn from me. Its also a great ego boost, since whatever I draw they think is super awesome. I like to remind the little ladies that I have twenty some odd years of practice more than they do under my belt, and if they keep at it, someday they too can draw a weird looking pony. In celebration of a good days work we did what we do best on the compound...and that is turn up the jams and have an epileptic fit of ass shaking in the living room. Actually it wasn't really a celebration so much as a normal night on 16th street. In case you were wondering, the Parliament station on Pandora is worthy of a total throw down.
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