我的小小天地 my little music

Whenever and whatever we take for granted, we become blind to it.
We cannot grow and learn from what we are blind to, especially when we do not even realize this blindness.
Any system of belief blinds.
Thus art is meaningful. It makes us see what most do not.

So is it thus coincidental, that the figurative and illustrative art thus gets celebrated more? Because an image that tells you precisely what it is, puts you back into the zone of clarity. A comfortable blindness perhaps?

(The title is itself a problematic analogy that I will not discuss much in this post)

It is very important that we recall how we became whatever we are today.

Every good ‘product’ came from something foolish, it came from something small, it went through prolonged process of ‘playing’, it is a result of linking countless play that had no real purpose in the beginning.

To push for any concrete idea of grandeur from the process of sheer intellect, without lived experience as reference, without structures of thoughts, without having failures as guidance, and an inward connection is an utter waste of time.

In cases of people going idea, idea, idea, concept, concept, concept, without action, this is usually one of the cause. The other cause being, simply, people don’t want to do the real stuff.

This has to change. Else this roundabout will never end. 

However in the case whereby there is something done, but lacking in concept, the latter itself is not the issue as much as whether or not, the review, tenacious inquiry, further development takes place. Without which a more meaningful learning cannot take place due to the abandonment of the real work that is set forth by the initial attempt.

School work tends to shortchange the development of the student precisely because of the above-mentioned abandonment (that takes place too early, too little done). This is what I call a curriculum-based learning. The one that truly reaches out to the student, connecting them to their true growth as an individual, is called individual (human)-based learning.

This is a response to what Wyona posted to me as question. I thought it is a valuable experience to share with all.

Hi Wyona,

Thanks for writing. I would love to see how I could help.
Below mentioned is just a possible scenario. The difficulty is in the execution, which I will pull examples from my various classes as case study later. I too face these problems at various stages.
Thanks for the questions.

__________________

The Root Cause (for 99% of the students)
The fear for drawing comes from the fear of being judged and a stigma that is already formed in their young minds. If we were to trace back on the history of those students (those with that fear), we would find somewhere, someone, sometime, passed him/her an unkind remark of “you can’t draw”, ” you are not good at art”, “art is useless”, “you are not talented” and etc of the same nature.

The Main Qualities of the Individual to Address
confidence
curiosity
playfulness
expressivity
emotional control

The Unorthodox Way to Undo the Damage (Suggestion)
So the approach is to bring ART, or DRAWING, totally out of context. (Transcending the stigma)

In other words, through careful RE-design, deconstruction and reconstruction of the activity of art in a way that even those who could draw (in particular ways) cannot gain any advantage.
(Leveling the playing field). With this, you build a condition necessary for learning to take place.
Socrates - Not knowing is when learning can begin.

Few things to keep in focus for this first phase of training.
1) focus on building confidence. think EMPOWERMENT.
2) focus on creating PLAY activities
3) focus on throwing everyone off their feet and forget (they are in fact) doing art. DISPLACEMENT OF FEAR

Watch out for nice accidents that happens when these activities happen (guaranteed). At appropriate time (intuitively), point it out, celebrate these seemingly nonsensical outcomes.
Preparation must be done in ploughing through tons of art especially of the 20th century by the teacher (guide) prior to this. Create a data bank of such art works.
Then when the students so called conclude the session, spend time discussing what they experienced.
Finally pull out examples from your data bank that have striking similar qualities with what they have done. Examples of these art works done are most probably labeled under modernism, dadaism, abstract expressionism, expressionism, impressionism, pop and post modernism.

Reconstruct their notion of art and deconstruct their stigma.

This process will not go away in a short time. You are likely to take around 3-6 months before something special begins to take over those stigma formed a long time ago.
From that point onwards, other forms of learning can take place.

End Note
It takes confidence from the teacher (guide) to make this happen too.
But from my experience, what I can share is that while the beginning stage seems to go nowhere sometimes, the majority of the students will end up excelling beyond what we can imagine later.
It will take a lot of patience and figuring out as you take this bold step forward.

Best wishes.

(more later, as promised)

Ten Lessons the Arts Teach
By Elliot Eisner

• The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
• The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
• The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
• The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
• The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor number exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
• The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.
• The arts traffic in subtleties.
• The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
• The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
• The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
• The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

Posted as a reference for my students.:)  

I just got back from exhibiting in Russia.
It was a wonderful trip with lots learnt.
Though tired, I was happy to receive the students and had a good workout with everyone.

Take a look at Yida’s still-life study. Notice how he is beginning to connect to the spatial qualities of the subject. Though not using any lines, he managed to set the still-life in an environment. You could almost sense the subject right there.
Good work Yida. This is just the beginning.

Today, we had quite a variety of works done at the workshop. It was great. Work need not be of one track, one kind. What really mattered was whether the work was done with an engaged mind. The kids certainly were right there with their work. Bit by bit, everyone was making progress. Daimai did his first still-life, Helene is now a lot more at easy with mixing colors around, Yida getting better all the time with his still-life studies, Yiying too with an good play of colors in her still-life, Iiyu improving on water color, Dingg an initiative in experimenting, Yaoju with an ever engaged intensive effort in painting.

Again, what a pleasure to have worked with everyone inclusive of the parents.

We again had a fabulous time. Every kid made good progress one way or another.
To hear from parents feedback like these are so important to the learning of how our kids learn.

Thanks again. Yida said he started to find it interesting to 写生。Yiying enjoyed her lesson too. She never thought that she can also draw “really something” besides the cartoons, birthday card….

Drawing from observation is something very fundamental yet often misunderstood. Many approach the subjects with preconceived ideas of what they see before they even begin looking. Objects are broken down into geometrical shapes to be positioned in constructed perspectives. As such, the innocent marvel of what we see, how we see it is already killed before we started looking at the phenomena.

What do you see in this picture? A creature? A portrait? A robot or just still-life?

Hence when we begin playing with what we see by taking alternate looks at the subjects, the fun and joy of observation and possibilities of intepretation return to the observer (or artist). The experience is like returning to the initial moments of a new-born looking at this phenomena world, nothing short of marvel and genuine awe.

Another aspect of how the workshop is run can be seen from how the kids learn from one another. Again it relates back to what I meant by “getting the environment right”.

Until next week.
After next week, I will be off to Russia to do my art exhibition on the 8th May. Workshop resumes 19th May through till 2nd June, and resume again only on the 30th June.

We had a fabulous workshop yesterday. 7 kids all did wonderful stuff and made good progress.
Take a look at what they did. Very intense focused drawing, learning and having fun!

Hear it from the parents:

You certainly have your ways handling children. My children, rebellious of anything prescribed for them, including going for your workshop initially, returned home admiring at their works of art for the rest of the weekend — thanks to your inspiration and encouragement. Great pedagogy!

You are really amazing. Both of my children continued their drawing on Saturday night. They talked and created stories, Yida tried to put everything into the drawing. They really enjoyed the moment. 你真的是功力深厚. Thanks a lot!!

Thanks for all your feedback. It is great to learn how the kids responded to the workshops. It motivates me in many ways as well. In fact the kids, under the right setting, motivate and learn from each other much more than any other conventional structure. I feel so privileged to be given the chance to work with everyone.

(CLICK to see more)

Welcome Yida!
You made good progress despite spending limited time here.
I am so happy to see you warmed up and released those expressive and sensitive lines towards the end of the session.
You rock!

Whilst I totally celebrate today’s pervasive deployment of art and design in so many aspects of our lives, I have to speak out against some worrying trends in art education.
The very reason why art has been marginalized (in many societies) is today the exact same reason used to privilege the act of doing it these days. Art is now deemed as ‘useful’ because the capitalists have found ways to use it to propagate consumerism through cosmetic packaging. The empathy visual representation strikes among us is now narrowly focused on selling ideas (particular ideas to be specific) to the pool of consumers, to steer thoughts and reactions within boundaries of commercial agendas. As such, people who can do certain craft well are celebrated for their skill, whilst those who can’t, are programmed to become buyers of those ideas.
The process created by this very utilitarian and consumer driven agenda has a big fallacy embedded in it. Because it constricts our experience to a narrow spectrum of what reality has to offer, it blinds us with the concepts it embraces and binds us to those constructs. Such an act does not sit well with the natural history of survival. It builds collective blindspots that become itself a big hurdle to overcome in due time, and it amplifies any shortcoming of any given construct. Philosophically speaking, this new found agenda still is trapped under the religion of science (started around Renaissance). Man it seems have not learned from the consequences of our abandonment of what is spiritual and human.
Art is not manufacturing. Craft is.
So unless we recognize that and treat art and doing art with the right attitude, we will continue to miss out on the essence of art big time. Yes. Art with a capital ‘A’. And like so many of the graduates of applied art I have ‘trained’, once the novelty of working under big brands wear off, they find themselves empty, used, and unfulfilled as a human being.
Whilst Art can be used to serve the capitalist engine, doing art and art education is much more than that. Don’t be con.

This is the 21 century. Art with a capital ‘A’ is for everyone and not just artist or designers or a niche group of collectors.

Doing Art is a privilege of every individual and should not fall victim to any utilitarian agenda. Doing Art is about having FUN, making discovery of yourself and nature, playfulness, being alive, being expressive, celebrating life and many more positive things concerning the deep meaning of an individual’s existence.

Don’t let the bad art teachers tell you that you shouldn’t do art or you are not ‘cut-out’ for art. It is not true. Everyone has the capacity to do art. But not everyone has the capacity to do particular celebrated or endorse forms of art. Ah. That’s the difference.

Creativity is a state of the mind.
It is a mind that is trying to make sense of the world we live in.
Thus it sees new relation, new form, and gets articulated outward as an expression (in any language — science, math, art, music, etc)
So long as we are able to keep our mind open (easy to say), we will chance upon lots of new experience constantly.

OK. Here you are, your back is up against the wall. You either have been forced to teach the subject art because you do not have enough teaching hours and your skillset is, well (unfortunately) not exactly enjoying a good match with that which is needed in the curriculum, or your kid needs to hand up a art assignment that you have no clue what to dish out as advice.
You are not alone. Chances are, you are among the majority who are not developed in art but have to deal with it due to circumstance.
No fear.

The best advise you can give to your child/children if you are not trained properly as an art educator, is to refrain from passing judgement based on your impression of what art should be.

Instead, just encourage your kid. Find the most positive thing you can say about their creation and do not go into the negative. If really nothing catches you, then just smile and say “keep going”, “interesting” or “what else can you do?” or “would you like to do another?”
Don’t worry about what you see or not see. Encourage your kid to describe what they are doing. But if they don’t feel like it, it is OK.
Sometimes, suggest things like “oh look, there’s a red color pencil. What do you think you can create with it.” Leave it to the kid to pick that up or not. Do not pick up a pencil and start doing yor kid’s art or teach them what you think they should be doing.
Give your child the assurance. Most art teachers in schools are forced to do that subject because they happen to be teaching unpopular or non-valued subjects in school. It is unfortunate that they cannot provide the best guidance to they kids in an area to important to the early development of our human brain. They are likely to instruct the kids to “draw outlines for whatever you are trying to draw”, or “color evenly”, or “color within the lines”, or “use only color pencils”, or “copy what’s in the book, or on the blackboard” and etc.
It is so important to recognise that doing art and art education is precisely NOT those things mentioned. In fact, those are the misinformed notions of art that either kills the interest in art in children or plants wrong notions that later takes years to un-learn.

Take a look at this work by a painter we all tend to love — Monet.
See what lines? What consistency in coloring? What … well you get the message I am trying to drive at.

(click to enlarge)

Here’s a radical idea! —-> Relate to your child, “never mind what the teacher said about your art. Just do what you like.”
That is the best support you can give your child.
Afterall, art is so lowly regarded and neglected that ‘failing’ it based on most unqualified judgement, would not have mattered. So why not turn the opportunity into something positive —-> just do what your kid feels like. At least it does not damage their confidence, kill their playfulness (that is so necessary in creatively), and bury a possible art geneuis that untrained teachers will not appreciate.

Think of it this positively, the grade for art in orimary (grade 1 -6) is only a pass or fail. No way will the teacher fail someone on art anyway. Besides the standing of your child does not include art as a subject. So why should anyone worry over it at all?

Help Offer —-> OK. You may still have reservation over the suggested idea. You want to know where your child stands in art. Very simple, email me. Make an appointment and I will assess where his strength lies. He may not become the next Monet, but the key is to identify what is his strength relevant to himself.

Give that power to create to your kids. Support them. Don’t kill the ART in them.