Art Workshop on 30th Aug: Interact, Imagine, Expand

On 30^th August, we conducted another workshop for 7 children at Kandivali East. Following children participated:

• Ishaan (Age 9)

• Avinash (Age 9)

• Avinash (Age 12)

• Ananya (Age 9)

• Mukta (Age 8)

• Adrika (Age 6)

• Aswati (Age 9)

Major focus of this workshop was to allow children to interact with colours and explore interaction of colours, to use their imagination to expand ideas of creation.

Following activities were carried out:

Mind Exercise

We began with a quick mind stimulating exercise. This exercise allows warming up of the mind. Here, one person says a random word and immediately after that next person is expected to impromptu blurt out what comes to their mind related to that word. So we gave the children a starting word and they quickly picked up on it and began pouring out the words that came to their mind. This exercise brought their minds to an alert state. 

Interaction with Colours

Once the children had a considerable amount of alertness and focus to listen, they were introduced to an activity called ‘Interaction with Colours’.  When children were asked to describe what is meant by ‘Interaction’?,  many children told their understanding of the word ‘interaction’.  Answers were : Blending, sharing with each other, when people meet, collaborating etc. So in general they were pretty clear on their understanding of what human interaction is. As humans interact with each other exchanging words, laughter, disagreements, enjoyment and several other acts like dance, fight, play and so on, so do colours. Colours can interact with each other. The focus was not on telling children upfront the various ways in which the colours can interact, but it was more of triggering their minds to think for themselves as to how the colours can interact with each other. We showed them some videos containing colour interactions. Children provided interesting inputs to the interaction that was shown in the videos. Following were some of those points:

• Colours can be each other’s enemies and can fight with each other
• Colours can dominate each other
• Colours have a character: mean, bully, submissive, joyful , friendly, reserved
• Colours dance with each other and blend to give rise to other colours
• Colours have genders. They claimed few colours were boys and others were girls. And also some colours can be a girl as well as a boy (a neutral colour) 
• An interpretation of a particular abstract video showing some coloured abstract shapes was interesting: they related it to a solar eclipse and generated a story from the visuals: “The white ring is a tire and the tire hides the sun (represented by a yellow circle). So there’s darkness because of it and other colours (red, green) get angry at the tire and start poking him, bullying him.

In order to make them understand the application of this concept as well as to show them how the interaction of colours has inspired many great artists, we showed them works of Jackson Pollock. Intent was to allow them to think how they can feel inspired to express their interactions on paper.

Interaction with Colours Activity: Watching videos of colour interaction and preparing the colour

After the videos, they created the colours by mixing food colours to a batter of flour and water. On a paper, they were supposed to explore the interactions of colours. While they were trying to explore various interactions on paper, they were also handling colours (indirectly interacting with colours themselves). Some of them were inspired to create colour drip paintings. They were encouraged to use their hands to feel the colours and their movements on the paper, initially some children were inhibited to touch the colours with their hands and they opted for using brushes. But as they went along, their excitement grew and they started freely interacting with the colours on paper using hands, pouring various colours and exploring more. One important observation related to their work was that some children did not know when to stop, they kept on experimenting till the paint was finished and ended up creating a muddy effect on the paper. 

Interaction with Colours Activity: Children exploring colour interaction

Interaction with Colours Activity: closer look of their work

Here are some of the results of the interaction with colours:

 

Interaction with Colours Activity: works of the participants

Imagine and Expand

In this activity, the aim was to allow children to experience and explore their imaginative quality. Children were asked how they can boost their creativity. 6 year old Adrika gave an interesting answer: ‘when you imagine, you can create’. In order to trigger their imagination, a clue was introduced to them. This clue was a small piece of printed drawing of an object. This clue drawing acted as a trigger/starting point to help them imagine more in line with that drawing and expand it.The clue drawings that were presented to them were:

• Picasso’s drawing of an OWL

• Picasso’s drawing of a woman face

• Drawing of a figure from Edward Munch’s scream painting 

Few interesting observations:  

• Ananya was keen on imagining the idea with the help of words. So it would be better for such children to let them explore the idea in literary medium. She would have been able to really express her idea in words. 

• Most of them related "scream" figure drawing and Owl drawing with darkness (black colour) and black colour greatly dominated their paintings. 

• It was interesting to note that the "scream" figure was coloured with various flashy, contrasting colours. The appearance of that figure made them choose colours which match the emotion(screaming gesture) of the figure. So they understood how to relate colours with gestures. 

• For expanding and imagining the painting with owl drawing, they thought of darkness of the sky, dark green trees. So it is evident that children do understand how to represent a particular emotion without anybody telling them. The objects like "scream" figure, owl were related to dark imagery and dark emotions by them immediately and they represented the emotion well. 

• Also it was interesting to note that, none of them was aware that these drawings are from paintings by acclaimed artists. So it allowed them to freely imagine. 

• Adrika had some individuality to her creation. She stayed consistent on her idea of creating an owl on a tree branch. On the other hand, Mukta was initially very original with her idea - she had created drawings of some  spooky figures relating to the "scream" figure. But then as she began painting, she changed it entirely into a landscape. It is possible that the children’s expectations(from themselves) and their expression change if the materials change. The materials dominate their creation. So in order to allow them to imagine freely, they should not be exposed to materials beforehand  e.g. we could see Mukta was very imaginative initially. But as she began painting, she changed her ideas and created a landscape with darkness and trees. Why was that? May be she could imagine freely, when she could draw simply without the burdens of (painting with) materials whereas while painting, she restricted her imagination to what she was familiar with. The concept of imagining and expanding the creation and then painting it was new to her and she went with the known path. Ishaan who worked very independently and creatively said later that he enjoyed the activity and it really showed that he had enjoyed because his work is thought provoking and different. And he actually stayed firm to his original idea.  

• Avinash (12 years old) also created something different : he said he created an alien looking at the space. And he could arrange his "scream" figure outside the boundaries of paper which was really what we expected them to do - to break the boundaries of conventional paintings and imagine freely. He was very thoughtful about his work. Ananya was unique and uninfluenced. She used sketch pens till the end and was even interested in writing words and stories instead of painting. It was not clear whether Aswati could imagine freely, as her work looks similar to her brother (Avinash 12 years old) but she was experimental while creating, when paper strips were given to her for collage, instead of sticking the strips, she coiled them and dipped them in colour and used their impressions on paper. So some children are good at imagining but when it comes to transforming that imagination creation they fumble. Whereas some children can not imagine freely but they are good at experimenting during the creative process.

Overall, this activity gave some thought provoking results and observations.

Imagine and Expand Activity

Works from Imagine and Expand Activity

 

Work: First row: Mukta, Ishaan Second Row: Ananya , Avinash

 

Work: First row: Avinash(12 year old), second row: Adrika, Aswati

Paint together

The concept of this activity is allowing children to be guided by their own free creativity and to be inspired by the creativity of others who contribute to the painting. A big paper was stuck on the wall, and children painted on it using brushes and colours one by one using one load brush technique, i.e. till the paint loaded on the brush is finished. 

As the music played children danced to the tunes and painted on the paper. This work is an expression of their enthusiasm, a statement of their amazing, un-suppressed and unlimited energy. The lines, colours in this painting is an exact representation of their uninhibited, upbeat self.

Oranges, Reds and chaotic, twisted, swirling, exuberant lines dominate the work. Which are representative of the high energy levels, joyous nature and exuberance of these children.

It was observed that, when one participant painted a name, others followed her, writing their own names afterwards. So was it inspiration or copying? There’s a thin line between Inspiration and copying and it’s a topic of research to find out the thin line between the two. But it was evident from their actions that it was not inspiration by which they wrote the names, they simply copied the behavior. 

Paint Together Activity

~By Shiwalee.

   

Artist’s Message to Children

As mentioned in my earlier post Why children’s art is visually appealing?, There are many examples of artists who seriously considered children’s art as symbol of uninhibited, direct  expression and took interest in retaining children’s creativity. Gutai Artist’s Group was one such example.

Gutai was an art group active during 1950-70 in Osaka, Japan. It comprised of a number of artists, all of them unique with their creation. They were the pioneers of performance art and revolutionized the way of Artistic creation like never before. Their work was hugely neglected back then and even today, very few are aware of these artists and their work. I confess that, I had not known about them until one day Shilpi introduced to me about this group and their groundbreaking work. She has written an interesting post on her musings about Gutai Art Group you can read it here.

Photo details: Gutai members in front of Yamazaki Tsuruko’s three sided mirror at outdoor Gutai art exhibition 1956. Front row from left:  Yoshida Toshio, Mizuguchi Kyoichi, Kanayama Akira, Sumi Yasuo and Shibata ken. Back row: from left: Yamazaki Tsuruko, Tanaka Atsuko, Motonaga Sadamasa, Yoshihara Jiro, Shimamato shozo, Sato seiichi (Courtesy : The Former Members of Gutai Art Association)

They took daring steps towards the undiscovered world of creation. However, the thing that greatly draws me to them, is their affinity to the art of children. They greatly admired and took inspiration from children’s art.

These innovative creators, were also very keen on children’s art and education and many of them taught children and regularly wrote articles in Japanese Children’s Poetry Magazine named Kirin(Giraffe).Yozo Ukita was one such Artist from the Gutai group, who was a part of the publication of this Magazine. Since 1955, he along with other artists of Gutai wrote several articles for children in this magazine.

Gutai group often collaborated with children and they treated children’s art with consideration that they gave to their own work writing about it seriously, publishing and even promoting children’s work through exhibitions.

Here are few interesting concepts/ideas that Gutai artists thought/wrote as articles for children:

Atsuko Tanaka: To Mothers

During one such exhibition arranged by Kirin Magazine for children, Gutai Artist Atsuko Tanaka came across a child who submitted bricks tied together with rubber-bands as Artwork. Atsuko Tanaka was instantly taken aback by the child’s conceptualization of an artwork. She writes:

“Among the works presented at this Kirin exhibition, one was made of old bricks tied together by numerous rubber bands. Seeing such a work, people might say, “Do you call this some sort of art? Things like this lie around everywhere.” At first glance, it may appear meaningless; however, I think it is very good….[She] did not try to tie bricks beautifully. She just wanted to tie them up together and she presented it as a work. Because she presented it as a work, it became different from things we see around us.”

In 1956 issue of Kirin magazine, She wrote an article addressing parents and guardians: “To Mothers” in which she advises parents to raise children without the pressure and constraint in creating art. She requests them to not interfere with children’s notion of creation by imposing their own notions of art and beauty, there-by allowing children to create freely.

What she tried to convey is so important even in today’s times: when some parents expect the children to draw in a particular way that is conventional and approved instead of being free with creation. They also expect children to get grades/appreciation/awards instead of allowing children to indulge in innovative, original and out-of-the box creations.

Here’s one of Atsuko Tanaka’s creation:  The Electric Dress that consisted of several versions with blinking light bulbs in different shapes and colours. It was created by Tanaka as a response to sudden and rapid growth with industrialization and technology happening in Japan at that time. One day she was seating on a bench at OSAKA station, she saw a flashing advertisement illuminated by neon lights. She decided ‘I would make a neon dress’. And she made it!

Atsuko Tanaka, Electric Dress at The Second Gutai Exhibition,The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan, 1956 (Courtesy : The Former members of Gutai Art Association)

Yoshihara Jiro : Please Draw Freely

Yoshihara Jiro, placed a huge board stuck with paper, some markers and allowed anybody to draw on it. They could start a new drawing or add to the existing. He invited them to draw as freely as they can.

Yoshihara Jiro: Please Draw Freely, 1956. Paint and Marker on wood approx. 200 X 450 X 3cm. Installation View: Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition, Ashiya Park, Ashiya, July 27-Aug 5 1956.© The former members of Gutai Art Association, Courtesy Museum of Osaka University

Shimamoto Shozo : Let’s make mischief!!

Shimamoto Shozo sought to inspire children to productive tomfoolery using both descriptions and photographs of works from the 1^st Gutai art exhibition 1955.

He says: Making mischief is not considered a good thing. And often children are taught not to make mischief. But there’s a difference between healthy mischief and unhealthy, bad mischief. He explains:

What is an unhealthy mischief? The one that harms others e.g. stealing somebody’s money, belongings, A prank that embarrasses someone, tearing or disfiguring someone’s good work, breaking valuables of others.  So in short all the mischief that harms people(or any living being) is a bad mischief.

What is a healthy mischief? One that does no harm to others and their belongings. E.g hiding and springing a surprise on someone, creating something and then destroying it yourself where the creation and destruction are both part of the experience. These are good mischief.So Shimamoto says that it’s good to do healthy mischief. But what happens is that the parents are so scared of their kids making mischief that they prohibit kids from playing any mischief at all.

There!, Shimamoto tries to tell the parents and kids to loosen a bit. Don’t be so restrictive. Let the good mischiefs happen, let that playfulness be alive.

He addresses to children:  ”At your age, you have to remember many things and do many things that your fathers, mothers and teachers tell you to do. As you do difficult things like grown-ups and your older siblings do, it becomes hard for you to behave spontaneously like you did before. This means you are becoming a good person, but sometimes you might feel not entirely satisfied.”

This dissatisfaction is due to loss of playfulness, loss of being your true self. He further adds “One way to satisfy this desire is Mischief.”

He invites children to retain their child-like self (not childish self) intact. The child-like self is abundant within children and looses traces as children grow; they lose the sense of playfulness, fun and become rigid grownups. The playfulness can retain child-like spontaneity, and Shimamoto shows one way of retaining that. He shows some ways of making good mischief: “The only way to make good mischief is to make your own tools for it. For example you can build a paper screen and break it, or buy a sheet of paper and smear different colors on it randomly.”

He encourages the children not to worry about what others at home will say. He tells them the story of some of the grownup artists who did such mischief to create art: “One of them, Saburo Murakami, thought this up: he blocked the entrance to his exhibition with huge sheet of paper so that nobody could enter. Then he ran towards it from 20 meters away, broke it and went through.”  

He further encourages them saying if you feel you can come up with better healthy mischief then you should act on it. He assures Kids of being themselves, playful selves that they are: he advises them not to think that art can be made by only privileged few with skills and efforts. He assures them that Art can be made from such mischief and playful aliveness. Only when you explore through such mischievous and playful way, your spontaneity will create something that is truly original and alive. He explains that Art moves people’s mind not because it is skillfully done but because it enthralls people, it makes them want to go inside and interact with it.

Lastly, He says: if you tell your mischief to your friends and they get happy saying ‘I want to do it too’, that’s a great Art.

Here’s an example of Shimamoto Shozo’s mischief: Once he created a canvas by sticking layers of newspapers to a wooden frame because he could not afford to buy canvass. While he was trying to draw on it, the newspaper accidently tore open creating interesting hole. He got so interested in that sudden moment of creativity that he created holes in the entire canvass!

Shimamoto Shozo: Holes Work 1950, Courtesy and 
©: Shimamoto Shozo website

Saburo Murakami : Art as a space of freedom in ‘speed violation’

This guy, Saburo Murakami flung himself on the frames of paper to create performance Artwork. Paper was considered to be traditional ingredient of Japanese culture and Architecture. His work represents breaking boundaries of conventional cultural limits.

His work produced understanding of violent interaction between body and material with the application of speed.

Saburo Murakami : Passing Through 1956. Performace View: 2nd Gutai Art Exhibition,Ohara Kaikam, Tokyo.Oct 11-17, 1956
Courtesy: Otsuji Sieko Collection, Musashino Art University & Library, Tokyo.©The Former Members of Gutai Art Association

Yamazaki Tsuruko : Extremely interesting!

Yamazaki Tsuruko tells children to think about what is the meaning of doing something ‘interesting’. She  gives examples such as

     A. When playing a game that you have played many times before

     B.When making up a new game and playing it

     A.When doing something easy and ordinary

     B.When doing something difficult and thrilling 

And asks the children ‘Aren’t ‘Bs’ more interesting?.’ She advises children about fun of active challenges rather than passive pursuits in her article.

Shiraga Kazuo : The Baby and Milk or Proof of Life 

He says ‘A baby cries when he needs milk. This signals that the baby is alive because it will die without milk. So if you want to do something, that means you are alive. If you do it, then that proves that you are alive. Speaking of doing what you want to do, there is one method you can always count on, that uses only what you have in front of you. Think hard. You can do many things when you are given a piece of paper or a box. What do you do if you don’t have crayons or paint? You can make a hole in the paper, tear it or stick a torn off piece on the hole you make. You may find it more beautiful than you expected. It may even seem to be a proof that you are alive.’

Shiraga Kazuo, dived in mud and wrestled, kicked, thrashed, squeezed the mud creating a first ever mud art work created by physical action with mud.Shiraga defined painting as a gesture than a medium.

Shiraga Kazuo : Challenging Mud. Courtesy and © The Former Members of Gutai Art Association

He dressed himself in red coloured costume with elongated sleeves and swayed on the stage against the black background to create an “alive and moving” painting. 

Shiraga Kazuo : Performance on stage. Courtesy and © The Former Members of Gutai Art Association 

Further he created painting by moving aerially over the painting and using his feet

Kazuo Shiraga in his studio in 1960. credit and courtesy of Amagasaki Cultural center

Shiraga’s bold performances were inspired by idea of tension between state and art. These aggressive performances also revealed and questioned the masculine possibilities and risks in the post-war Japan.  

Shimamoto Shozo : The Earth is not round

Shimamoto addresses to children by saying they will not believe him and mock him if he tells them : ‘Earth is not round, it is flat’. Why will he be mocked? Because Earth is round, it’s a fact. But several hundred years ago, everybody believed The Earth was flat and people mocked and scorned Galileo because he was saying something new.

He says ‘In everything, it takes great effort to think up something new. And even if something is good it takes time for people to appreciate it. So if you are not strong enough, when you think up something new and important and nobody praises it, You may give it up. And instead you will start thinking up things that are not so new, but that please everybody.’

These messages of the Artists encourage the children to be brave and experimental with their creativity. They are also the counseling messages to the Guardians, Parents and Teachers to nurture the abundant creative energy of children. Gutai Artist’s greatly believed in importance of ordinary people’s engagement in artistic creation and overall growth of art. Their messages are applicable to us adults as well..

Isn’t it?

References:

1. Gutai Splendid Playground: Ming Tiampo and Alexandra Munroe 
2. Electrifying Painting: Ming Tiampo
3. Why Gutai? : John Held, Jr.
4. Gutai Splendid Playground Exhibition at Guggenhiem http://web.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/gutai

  

     ~By Shiwalee

Why children’s art is visually appealing?

During the workshop that we conducted for children, I came across a 4 year old child named Moksha who created an interesting shape of a Car. He was very original with the process and the creation although completely unaware of it. But it was very pleasing to the eye.  Why? I did not know.

Before finding the answer, Let me introduce you to Moksha’s car

Here’s Moksha so deeply lost in creation. This kind of deep concentration is unlikely in us adults. As a part of the workshop, he was given some pages of magazine, a fevicol tube and some pieces of mirror for creating a collage. He started sticking torn pieces of paper with fevicol initially and during the process he got hooked to the fevicol. He started pouring a large quantity of fevicol to create something.

Moksha's Fevicol Cars

Moksha’s first car was entirely made out of Fevicol and had 2 round mirrors for the wheels. The other car he created was also fully made of Fevicol but one wheel was round and other was rectangular. Both these cars have a bizarre yet beautiful shape and unconventional wheels made of unconventional material.

This was a completely innovative way of creation. He had no inhibition to select a rectangular wheel for the car.

It does not mean that he did not have the knowledge of what a car is; fact is that he came for the workshop in his father’s car. Then how did he come up this distortion?

Although he had seen the car, he had bypassed the practical knowledge that this car may not work on the road. And this was not done intentionally, as he may not have known the word “PRACTICAL” yet. Although he was able to see the reality, it had not affected his creativity.  That benefited him to create something that an artist tries to achieve: Complete freedom from the known and a simplification of expression. His unintended pursuit in ignoring the practical knowledge about workings of the car and simply giving in to the instincts of creation helped him create something new. He was creating art with free mind and simplicity of expression. He had his powerful, uninhibited expression intact. He was not even aware that his creation was original and pleasing to the eye.

With this thought I started checking out young children’s drawings/paintings in newspapers/displayed contests. To my surprise they all created paintings that were aesthetically beautiful.

Take a look at these paintings. Aren’t they beautiful and extremely original?

These are created by children between ages 4 to 7 years

What makes these paintings so pleasingly beautiful?   This question is more interesting when we realize that the children who created these paintings did not have any formal training in art.

While beauty is subjective to a larger extent, there are a few common grounds on which certain art can give visual pleasure to the eye and qualify as aesthetically beautiful. Properties like beauty of form, expression, composition are necessary ingredients of  good art. Also, few traits that appeal to the viewer are genuineness and sincerity of expression, spontaneity and originality of creation.

If I check all the above paintings with these parameters, I find that the above paintings fulfill most of the parameters.

Then are these children born artists? Do they have an inherent capability to create beauty without a  formal knowledge of aesthetics?  

According to the researches that have gone in finding answers to these questions, Children don’t have any aesthetical knowledge as such at this very young age. But with their limited perception, they can create simplified primitive symbols which can be traced to forms found in a Modern artist’s work. So the children’s art  looks like modern art which a trained modern artist creates by making deliberate efforts of simplification. By default human brain is attracted to simplification. Experiments in Neurology have revealed that we have an attraction to primitive symbols ( e.g. cave art ). So it is possible that children’s  art attracts the eye because of its beauty of simplification and primitivism.

The Research paper ‘Art of Children’ (REFERENCE 1) states that Children are not creating any aesthetic beauty  intentionally. Furthermore, It is normally misunderstood that younger children draw/paint like this because of lack of skill. Although not entirely true,  the fact is that children have different focus while they draw/paint. This focus could be sticking to primitive symbols in their brains or simplification by selecting only what they find necessary/interesting or their unintentional irreverence and unconcern for the reality.

In Moksha’s case he knows that wheels are round but since nobody ever told him wheels cannot be anything else but round, he is unaware of the practical implication of it. That has benefited him in his creation - however bizarre - yet extremely interesting.

A young child will go from simple thought process to a complex  thought process as he grows. He is not exposed to a lot of experiences during his young age so his knowledge is limited but his primitive ideas/forms are intact. Once he grows with his age, he is influenced by external information which leads to a muddling of primitive ideas. Young children have a benefit that they don’t ‘KNOW’, so they do not have to unlearn anything to simplify their vision. Children are able to make use of that small information and create something simple yet beautiful, An abstract artist on the other hand has grown a lot of structure in his thoughts so he has to unlearn to break free from rigidity and structure to go towards simplification.

A Child is driven by simplification and process of creation itself than realism, visual logic, neatness, conventional rules and acceptability by peers.

Many modern artists greatly admired children’s art like Paul Klee, John Miro, Gutai Artists.

Paul Klee gave a lot of importance to art created by children with respect to his artistic exploration. He was looking for simplicity in creation which he found in younger children’s art. Paul Klee used to study drawings of his child as well as used to collect other children’s drawings. When he found a portfolio of his childhood works, he was mesmerized and commented that those were some of his most significant works. He endlessly practiced child-like vision in his creation and searched for pure, un-corrupted expression of a new-born.

The research paper ‘Paul Klee and Art of Children’(REFERENCE 3) states that: ‘Klee does not indulge in ‘childishness’ in his drawings, rather it is the activity of honesty. It is like a newborn child making a “tiny but real act” born of necessity.  Paul Klee has said “remain open through life, much favored child, child of creation” What Paul Klee and children have in common is the honesty and wonder of seeing with unobstructed eye’.  It also states that the child forms his image quite naturally drawing from within-the inner eye or imagination, and without – the outer eye or world of nature. His representation of this image is direct; his creations are driven by inner certainty or necessity and not by outside logic or influence.

Also, Gutai Artists greatly followed a children’s magazine ‘Giraffe’ for artistic inspiration. They also greatly admired and tried to implement the uninhibited attitude of children. When I read further about these artists, I found great similarity between the process of Moksh’s fevicol car and one particular artist Shimamoto Shozo’s work ‘holes’ . Shimamoto Shozo , was working on an improvised canvass which he made by sticking layers of newspaper to a wooden frame. While he started drawing on it,  the newspaper ground accidentally tore open, to which Shimamoto responded by deliberately making holes all over the surface. And that was his finished work. He simply gave in to the process and to the chance physical action with material.

And what did Moksha do? The same. A chance physical action with material. He liked the fevicol drippings so much that he simply stopped sticking pieces of paper and worked with fevicol alone just to have the chance physical action with fevicol. As if he knew Gutai artists!

While I was astonished with the younger children’s built in capabilities and wondered how far they could go, I took a pause and gave a thought about Moksha and his possible future. Here it goes:

When Moksha  will go to a school; he will be so excited to create something new. This time he will decide to create a car with triangular wheels. But the teacher will see his work and try to teach him that the wheels are always round. He will ask ‘But my car wants to have triangular wheels’.  ‘Why can’t it have?’

‘No. that’s not possible. How can a car have triangular wheels? Are you silly?’  The teacher might say.

There!  He will be bound to think : ’oh I should not create the wheels the way I want. I should abide by what they say. Or they will call me silly’.

He will stop imagining beyond the limits because he will be afraid of being called silly. He will become “sane”. And he will draw a car like a car. Without fevicol , without rectangular/triangular wheels  without imagining what his car could be. He will draw it with round wheels. He might not find fun in drawing it but still he will complete it till the class is over.

After visualizing his possible future, I got some clues for why kids like Moksha can become less and less creative with growing years and started looking for answers to what are the other factors that contribute to this diminishing creativity, originality and self driven exploration.

I checked out paintings in age group 8 and above, to check whether this phenomenon is true. And it is indeed true. Take a look of these paintings by children of age group 9 to 12; although these paintings are more in line with reality and trying to follow the rules of drawing, they are less aesthetically appealing, less original and less experimental.

Why?

The creative thinking and exploration starts diminishing once formal training starts either in the school or special classes. Creating out of a same old mold and didactic ways of learning shuts off the creativity. The way of perceiving and depicting certain idea/object does not come from an inner feeling but rather it is imposed from outside based on reality/conventions. The soul of the work is lost somewhere and what we see is a pretty same old work with no originality and caliber to surprise and please the eye. Many researchers have studied young children’s art and possibilities why the artistic creation degrades after a certain age.

Art of children A Research paper(REFERENCE 1) greatly looks into the reasons, It helped me find out many factors ranging from conventional pedagogy to children’s own psychology:   

Older children may not have a lack of ability to create but they have a shift in their focus of concern. They have the ability to be imaginative but they focus on realism instead. Making spontaneous, inventive drawings may not be older children’s priority. And this results in decline to aesthetic sensitivity due to too much indulgence in skill mastery and no interest in exploration and creative action.

Older children do not draw for the enjoyment of drawing, they draw with some aim, and also with growing age there’s a shift in focus (with studies of other subjects etc) and the priorities change. Learning existing knowledge (that’s taught to them in schools/or through other mediums) is so exhaustive that their interest in exploring and creating “new” is lost. Information is bombarded on them. To be more acceptable by the authority and also by peers, they have a tendency to follow the conventions. The inclination is towards following the rules and not to be left out. Importance to spontaneity of thought, unconventional, original ideas, and imagination is ignored.  Sometimes, it is even deliberately hidden to fit to the conventions even by the children themselves. When this uninhibited expression is kept hidden and un-nurtured, it is lost forever. Creation is more outcome oriented than process oriented, so older children’s frequency of drawing without aim simply indulging in process of creation also decreases. It may happen that the children who do not/can not draw as per the standards are considered ‘not good’ at drawing by the authority, parents or sometimes even the children themselves. Some children may not be good at drawing activity but good at reflecting and appreciating a piece of art and able to write or sing or compose something by getting creative inspiration from the Art. But because the focus is only on production and not on art-appreciation/reflection or cross domain creativity, they are discouraged to interact with Art. With growing age the acquaintance and interaction to creativity/art is disconnected.  The children who show some talent in art also focus on realism/technicality/stereotype than spontaneity/experimentation.  These older children can perceive aesthetic properties but do not seem to be concerned about them and they can not consciously put their knowledge of aesthetic properties in their creation.

Contrary to this younger children take more daring steps towards creation because they are ignorant of both outcome and knowledge. They do not have knowledge of realism, perspective. It acts as benefit to allow complete freedom of imagination in their creativity. Also they are not cautious of making mistakes. So they are freely discovering their creativity with confidence though they are less competent. They do not care about end results; they are more involved and forget themselves in process of making.

May be more factors need to be explored, and once we know the reasons, the bigger question is are there any possible remedies to retain children’s creative ability with their growing age?

My research continues with these open ended questions…

REFERENCES

1.       The Art of Children’s Drawing:   Elizabeth Rosenblatt and Ellen Winner

2.       Art, Mind and Brain: Howard Gardner

3.       Paul Klee and Art of Children : Ellen Marsh 

- By Shiwalee

hello gutai!!

HELLO GUTAI!!!

You know what they say, things come to you when you need them the most, just after we had had the initial meetings to start our project I stumbled upon an article related to GUTAI. It immediately sucked me in and it was all I could talk about. Luckily the Mousai group  share the same interests as me and they were quite intrigued by it, so when Shiwalee suggested that we add additional focused research projects to what we are already doing- naturally we decided on the topic of GUTAI.

So much of what we are trying to achieve in our ongoing activities has already been beautifully experimented with by the Gutai artists. I’m getting insane inspiration from it and it is helping me understand what we have set out to do on a deeper level and in ways I had not thought of before.

Before I ramble on…you should know…

WHAT IS GUTAI?????? It was an avant-garde art movement that started in the 1950’s. The Gutai group was founded by the incredible Yoshihara Jiro- artist, critic and above all teacher. It was legendary in its own time and has directly and indirectly lit the spark for many of the modern ideas that have followed. It was highly experimental and extremely ferocious.

The Gutai expanded the definition of painting making it looser and allowing it to include any action of picture making in time and space. It continued to break down such barriers- like the pre set notions about art and “artists”.

There is a lot I have on my mind, but right now I cant really seem to organize it up and transfer it into something tangible. So forgive me if what follows is a little disjointed… here are the main things that I feel and understand and could link with the Gutai movement.

 I love that they believed that one must not have to be an ‘artist’ in the literal sense to be able to create… What I consider avant-garde is the involvement of ordinary people in the production of a work of art.—said SHIMAMOTO Shōzō, (a member of the Gutai group). Which is what we here at the Mousai group believe too…That’s why we are aiming at attracting different people from different backgrounds and different occupations to take part in our courses. It will be inspiring to see the different ways in which peoples thoughts get translated into art. I feel we will be learning as much from the people we will be guiding as they will learn from us. We have a chance to explore raw creativity as an inspiration to…well, to stop thinking too much. Something I feel anyone put through even a few months of art school needs to learn to do…I know I need it.

Which brings us to the process over finished product issue, the Gutai group among many of the great contemporary artists believe in stressing the importance of the actual act of creating rather than the art that is produced as a result of that action- you could say that the process on its own is strong enough to be called an art in itself. When I do any work, it’s the process that I’ll remember later on and my favourite pieces are the ones I enjoyed the most or even sometimes the ones I found most challenging, and I think this holds true for a majority of artists. This is “a day to day process that anyone can engage in” (said Sadaharu Horio- Gutai member). Sadaharu  paints every single day without fail, he has made creation a continous process which he has integrated into his life. Everything is much more enjoyable when you don’t have to stress about what the outcome may be, creativity shouldn’t be pressured by the need to produce “beautiful” things ( please note that I’m using the term beautiful very loosely here). If It’s not being pressured it gets honed and the best part is, that it can be applied to every single aspect of our lives be learning, working or even something as mundane as tying your shoe laces. All the great people we hear about approached their areas of excellence with a touch of creativity.

Creativity is such an elevating thing, really shows us the beauty of our minds and that’s why art is an experience and a therapeutic one at that. I was so touched to hear feedback from the parent of the 4year old girl that participated in our last event. Apparently, after she got home she was all smiles and had seemed to have really enjoyed herself  Which was news to me, in fact to all of us, because during the event she didn’t seem quite responsive, so it’s great to know that we managed to get through to her.  For me that was something that really motivated me and made me want to try harder at making this project work.

Speaking about processes, Shozo shimamoto approached this in a way that I find very interesting, he was concerned with toeing the line between chance and control.( I will be dedicating a post to him soon) How much of the art owes itself to the artists control and how much of it does it owe to chance?? Is that control (that artists spend years and years perfecting) really necessary to partake in the act of creation or can you go in blind like a child and create something spectacular and enjoy the benefits of that action. I guess control is important, there are certain levels of art which need that level of understanding and sensitivity in creation, but for art as a therapeutic activity, you can forget all about control and just enjoy! After all one of the numerous benefits of art is enjoyment. That is why the courses and activities that Mousai have designed are such that they do not require any developed skill, they are basic and quite simple allowing the participants to engage in them effortlessly and allowing them to explore the concept of chance and control on a basic level.

There is much more I’d like to talk about but it’s not quite ready just yet, plus this post is getting too long :P.  so that’s  it for now…I’ll definitely be adding more posts on this topic soon.

By shilpi