Tag Archives: creativity

Learning to Sit Still on a Spinning World

Medicine, Parenting, , , , ,

When I was first a mom I was astounded on a daily basis by the experience. Not to mention, exhausted. The now 15 y/o then wanted to nurse constantly.  For hours on end, day and night we would sit together – him happily suckling and me? Well, honestly I was bored. There was a certain low-level trapped feeling; a feeling of being stuck yet again sitting tethered to the little creature. Don’t get me wrong, I loved breast-feeding and we made a great team. It did however, take a while to settle into the experience. That settling came when I learned to enjoy those moments of enforced peace.

There is great beauty to sitting absolutely still and giving into the process of nursing. I had to relax and let the world spin around me – the clothes unwashed, the dinner cold, the business of life unattended to. And in those moments of peace I would often think my clearest thoughts.

Again I find myself forced to sit still on a spinning planet. Forced by an injured leg, to let go of the multitasking productivity the working mother in me prizes. My family laughed at me last night as they scurried around on their good legs and I sat on my hurt bum watching them. They laughed because I mentioned that having my hamstring tendon torn is a lot like breastfeeding. Huh? No one stayed around long enough to hear why; but I kept thinking about this idea. My life is so full of mothering and work. So full of electronic medical records, blogging and Twitter. So filled out by friendship. So full that I lack, almost completely, time for quiet reflection. Now, in a space without the ability to scurry I am left sitting and relaxing. A novel experience? No, but one that is nice to return to.

I am reading Twila Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. She has taught me much about my own developing creative habit. One of the first chapters talks about the squelching effect on creativity of background noise. Noise both literal and figurative. She suggests turning off our computers, our music and skipping the newspaper for a period of time to understand the effect they have on us. That was hard advice to swallow; I have always worked with music playing. I started to drive my 20 min to and from work without the radio. At first the silence was a bit uncomfortable but as the days passed I found that my mind was productively wandering. Bits and pieces of my days were knitting themselves into coherent stories as I drove quietly along.

Breast feeding, healing and silent driving. Less tweeting, less laundry, simpler dinners. Soon I may be positively Zen-like sitting here watching them all run around. Hopefully I will at least, synthesize a few blog ideas while I watch.

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Pink and Purple Circles

Art, Medicine, , , , , , ,

Promoting arts education is crucially important for our kids. Before I leave the background discussion of why I need to address one last point. Arts education is often taken to mean creating and performing art. Art history is also of value. This involves art criticism, the academic study of art with its stylistic and aesthetic context. It gives us the ability to understand the sublime that is art.

Briefly, three ideas for why the contextual study of art should be included in the standard arts education:

  • Understanding what influences the framework that art hangs on allows a more enjoyable connection with it. This is likely better explained with an example. My kids all went to a wonderful parent cooperative preschool. On my workdays there I loved being at the art table. Over the years I became increasingly impressed with the influence the children had on each other’s artistic styles. There might be three kids at the table painting away. One more would join in and start painting say, concentric pink and purple circles. Soon I would notice lots of use of pink and purple and lots of circles appearing across the table. Over time I worked with the teachers to form a yearly art exhibit where we hung the kids art on the fences in the school yard. It was grouped by period and context. It was a joy to see how the kids had developed together! This ripple effect or evolution of style is seen in our study of major schools of art. Artists influence each other and create an ongoing evolution of artistic style.
  • An understanding of the evolution of tastes in art generates acceptance of diversity. Artists through time have often been scorned when they challenged commonly accepted ideals with new approaches. They take a new approach that eventually becomes the accepted norm (think pink and purple circles). Seeing this progression as it has played out repeatedly through time can teach kids an acceptance of new thinking, new looks, innovative approaches. It can help them be less judgmental of differences in those around them.
  • Understanding the mechanics of creating art is valuable. Artists work hard. Really hard. They practice day in and day out in order to produce what can often appear simple. Have you ever looked at a modern painting and thought “I could do that”? Likely, you could not. Professional artwork requires both innate talent and earned skill. Understanding this can encourage and motivate a child in their own persistent efforts.

Art is more sublime when hung on a framework of understanding. You have more fun when you can see where the story behind the pink and purple circles. Then you might be motivated to go home and try some of your own.

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Preserve Arts Education; Preserve a Sense of Wonder.

Art, , , , , , , , , , ,

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. – Albert Einstein

My eldest is almost fifteen and is beginning the process of planning his high school and college “careers”. This proves to be a rather stress-inducing experience; apparently very different from the casual way I approached high school. Late the other night he admitted he was worried about choosing classes for the upcoming years. So, in the spirit of facing our fears we curled up together right then and went the through the high school graduation/college entrance requirements. The school had provided worksheets and lists which we dove into. Amongst scads of science, math, and language requirements I learned that of the 230 units required to graduate only 10 of those need to be in arts education.

This made me start thinking again about the lack of value we place on arts education and the consequence of this devaluing. This is evident in the currently proposed national budget; some members of the House of Representatives have proposed deep cuts or even total elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts. This represents a huge loss nationally. On a more local level our school systems face severe budget crises and are viewing arts education as expendable – Leaving it acceptable to require only 10 units out of 230 for a young person to graduate from high school and enter college.

What is the cost of this devaluing? Put differently – what is the value in teaching kids arts? We teach art and teach about art because doing so:

  • sharpens critical thinking skills. Cassandra Whyte is credited with early work showing that artistic experiences develop creative and independent thought processes that are important throughout an individual’s lifetime
  • teaches innovative thought
  • widens perspective, encourages acceptance of generational, cultural, social and geographic diversity
  • teaches empathy and sensitivity to other’s experiences by exposing them to other world views, brings about a deeper understanding of the world
  • Therefore, teaching the arts nurtures skills that improve our kid’s future ability to work successfully in the global marketplace
  • calm the soul and brings beauty to daily life

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life – Pablo Picasso

  • preserves our cultural history and heritage; preserves our collective memory

My son and I filled in the worksheet with lots of science, language and math. And art? Well, not so much. He moaned at my suggestion of various art classes let alone art history. His groaning made me realize that I had before me, fodder for another great dinnertime conversation. Tonight I am going to ask them why I talk so much about the arts. Why I drag them to museums? Why we have lots of paint, pastels and paper? Why are our walls covered with art? They may generate some new ideas from my list above. I’ll get back to you with them.

If you want to help promote arts education yes, of course generate your own dinner table conversation. You can also look at the work of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund.

What IS art? Asking to stimulate creative thought in our children.

Art, Parenting, , , , , , , ,

An article titled The Creativity Crisis published in Newsweek last year brings much to the discussion of why we should teach our children about art.

American creativity scores are falling…It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”

The article explains the obvious importance of raising our children to be creative thinkers; the nation’s challenges will be better solved by leaders capable of creative thought. Approaches generated by creative minds and by those willing to listen to and build upon diverse ideas brought forth by others. Raising a generation of creative thinkers who enjoy and appreciate diversity seems an insurance policy for the success of our country.

Why has creativity dropped so significantly in the U.S.?

One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children….American teachers warn there’s no room in the day for a creativity class. Kids are fortunate if they get an art class once or twice a week.

Focusing on art classes as the place where creativity is taught is certainly a bias.  It would be best to integrate creative thought into all points of learning. As parents, we can do much at home to stimulate and encourage creative thought. When asked a question by your child, pause before answering. Ask one back. Encourage your child to think of as many possible answers as possible. Use dinner time to ask questions of your own. Accepting this as a bias, art understanding and thought is a great place to start when teaching our children creativity and acceptance of diversity. It gives us a good place to begin as parents. I suggest you open a dinner conversation with this question:

What IS art?

I asked my family this about a year ago. We have returned to the discussion throughout during many meals with family and friends. The answers are varied and in themselves form a great discussion; they became more developed as the conversation went on:

  • something you see
  • with color and shape
  • has history
  • ages well and people appreciate it over time
  • evokes feeling
  • created
  • engages your senses
  • makes a statement; the artist is trying to say something
  • something beautiful

We felt that art can include many mediums. When I asked which I was given the following list: paint, sculpture (both stabiles and mobiles), music, film, architecture, TV, nature (both as art and as inspiration), food, clothing (my 9 y/o boy added armor), the human body and literature. The list may be endless.

This discussion brought me to ask next whether they considered specific works of art to be indeed, art. I challenged them with Marcel Duchamp’s urinal. Indeed, that in turn brings me to the next blog post idea:

Is THAT art?