My Artistic Struggle

So, it's 3:30 in the morning and my mind is racing. I came home from my first graduate meeting so full of ideas and questions about my job and about myself. I figure the only way I'm going to be able to sleep is if I get up and dump my brain on paper.
A couple of things I've been thinking about is my role as artist/teacher. For years I have so uncomfortable with the idea of artist. I didn't like calling myself an artist, because quite frankly...I didn't make art. Sure, I did artistic like things, like sewing quilts and making birthday cakes, sewing clothes for my kids, and other stuff, but I did not make art like I did in high school. I never put pencil to paper or brush to canvas like I had done in the past. My journey went from making art in high school, and feeling pretty successful, to making art for professors at BYU, to having a baby and raising 4 children. So it has been about 14 years since I made art for myself.
I struggle with that, as I teach. Sometimes I feel like a fraud and that I'm hiding that fact from my students. Do they know that their art teacher doesn't make art? I've thought about making art a lot, and get inspired to make it all the time, so I go out and buy art making materials, and then they just sit in a drawer. I think I'm terrified by the thought of having lost my talent, or that I can't do it, or I'll make bad art. I'm so worried about the outcome, that I never pick up the brush and enjoy the process.

I've also been stewing over my students as I watch them try to figure out what pleases me as an instructor. They want my feedback and affirmations constantly and simply can't stop and enjoy what they are doing. I had a girl yesterday that had inscribed her upside down drawing onto her paper by placing the image onto her sketchbook, tracing really hard over to imprint, and then sketch over it. She brought it to me to pass off as her own, and was looking for me to congratulate her on her perfection. I totally called her out on it. Others kept complaining the assignment was hard, or that they simply couldn't do it. They couldn't just enjoy what they were doing.

I need to embrace the ideas that it takes 10, 000 hours to become an expert or that the more times you fail the closer you come to succeeding. I need to overcome the paralyzing sensation that comes when I look at a blank piece of paper or a blank canvas.

So my questions tonight are:
1. How can I myself learn to enjoy the art making process more than the outcome?
2. How can I get my students to enjoy the process?
3. What are some open ended projects that are unpredictable, that do not focus on the outcome, but rather the evolution of the artwork.
4. How do you develop an artistic process?
5. How will finding my own artistic voice impact my teaching in the classroom?
6. How can my students learn from watching me explore ideas and seeing me create?


In response to these questions, I had an example last year of where I tried to do an unpredictable art lesson with the students and it was all based on chance. It was a Spiral Art Ed. lesson based on chance. We put on music and created collaged poster boards. When the music stopped, we passed ours to the next person and did this for a couple of days until we had all of them covered. I then randomly passed them out to the students and had them create meaningful art work on top that had to do with chance in their lives.

They hated every minute of it.

I felt like it was the most meaningful art they had produced all year and they looked amazing hanging up in the hallway. But you know what, not one of the students took theirs home. I ended up having to throw them all away? Why? I couldn't wrap my brain around it! But you know what they loved. Graffiti art that they copied off the computer.

I think it was because it was defined. They knew what the outcome was. We have programmed our students in schools to find the right answers and to get the highest grade possible. But art just does not work like that. Students are afraid of experimentation because of the risk of failure. I am too, quite frankly.  But where lies the creativity in that? I think we've squished the creativity right out of ourselves and our kids. So my question is,

How do we get it back?

To be continued....                                                                         (I'm going to try to sleep now.)