Are you offering experiences in art or are you generating a copy cat

A very wise teacher said to me today "if you stay focussed on the making, you will have a far better relationship with the process.
When we are teaching very young children about art and creativity, In New Zealand it is common practise to make sure the experience is about the practise and not the product, but does it really stop us putting our ideas in children's heads, and leading experiences by what we know, instead of what they know.


Do we pile on the ideas to get them going, to help them have vision.
I know myself i am quilty of pluging in the hot glue guns and pulling out the collage materials and then feeling good about helping a child to see just what can be stuck together with hot glue.

I made a promise to myself today to never do that anymore, i realise now art is the journey of your thinking, art is a journey of your discoveries and even more art is a journey of your mistakes.

I want to challenge teachers to become more active in developing playful thought processes with children and art resourses.
I also want to remind them that playfulness can look like tipping and wasting.

When i think about all the years i have wasted teaching art, making sure children can stick without wasting the cellotape or glue with out just squeezing, really i cringe.
I cringe because how can you find out about a resourse without understanding its properties, how can you work out glue is sticky unless you put it all over your hands and have stuff stuck to you.

The same with cellotape, what is the point of having so much in one single roll if you can not get a giant piece and pull and pull and pull, little hands are not ready for little pieces, it is fundamentally wrong to expect a small child to use the smallest piece.

More than that why do we want them too, we really owe it to children to unwind all our own practises in art, because what we have learnt is all about copying.
My art used to be about seeing other art and copying it, but as i am discovering, art is a stage of thinking and action, and more often than not having a preconcieved idea about doing it limits our creativity.

Now do not misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with inspiration, and inspiration can come from other works of art, inspiration can come from picture books, or traditional craft processes, but it should never dominate the experience of the child.
So next time someone comes to you saying i want to make a boat, i challenge you to get on board with the thought processes first.
Ask the child "what kind of materials do you think you want to make it from?,
Were you thinking of something hard or soft?
Give them the whole experience by saying do you want to come and see if there is anything you want to start with, and then jump on board with the thought processes, talk about your experiences with boats, draw out there experiences with boats, get into the playful creative zone.
We owe it to our future artists to get out of copycat mode, take children hands on a journey just like taking a walk into the unknown, take one step at a time and allow children the freedom to just go where there mind takes them.

Happy art making.