“The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.”(Elliot Eisner)
What does this mean to me?
The arts has taught me much about myself. I have discovered shape, color, design, and material preference through making art. I have been able to create a visual representation of my thoughts and ideas from my experience and my environment.
As a young student I learned a great deal from other artists and art teachers. In critiques of my student art work, I was given very helpful information that I used. After graduation, I felt so grateful to be on my own to do my own thing and not worry about pleasing my teachers. I respect my academic education in art, but I have enjoyed my freedom to explore the “what if I broke some of the rules I was taught?” I now make up my own rules and explore my freedom to break them if I wish. I love taking the time to risk the “what if I do this” moments.
As a young jewelry and metalsmithing teacher I was very controlling. In the beginning my student’s projects all looked very much alike. They left without their projects at the end of the year and this disturbed me. I began “letting go” by teaching many smaller, technical projects in the first quarter; and then second quarter allowing more freedom for them to explore their own designs. I taught them about general design ideas, and showed examples of how the various techniques they learned could be combined in various ways.
During this second quarter our relationship became more about negotiating, than requiring them to do what I asked. Some would take off like “gang-busters.” Others seemed to be lost as if they had never been given the opportunity to make decisions for themselves.
“Letting go” was not easy for me, but I informed them about a safety net. I asked them to think about the evaluation differences between first and second quarter. In the beginning, I gave very strict assignments with precise goals. If they deviated from my requirements, I graded them down. After they understood the basics of soldering, sawing, polishing, etc; they then had the vocabulary to use them in paragraphs. These paragraphs became very interesting and complex pieces of jewelry. My evaluation would now be based on effort and completion; I could not evaluate their ideas. Their ideas are all good, based on individual “perspective” and “interpretation”.
My students bought into what I wanted for them because they knew they were given something they could use for their own ideas. They and I were satisfied and happy. Our final critique was more about the exploration of their idea and other ways to express it next time; not about craftsmanship and technique. With practice, those will improve over time.
We celebrated the differences and similarities between the projects. The students were excited to see the many solutions by their colleagues to the same assignment. And next semester, returning students wanted to continue to explore last semesters ideas with variations and improvements. “BINGO!” JA
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