How
can we teach creativity.
Several years ago the Harvard Business
Review published a column entitled "The MFA is the New MBA"
(Daniel H. Pink, author Febuary 2004, page 14) the gist of the column
was that as Einstein put it “Imagination is more important than
knowledge” and the school subject where imagination was most nurtured
and encouraged is art.
Technically art teaches a set of specific skills used for the representation
of objects and forms in 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional space. Art history
teaches the linear history of how these representations changed over time
in concert with social changes and the introduction of new methods and
materials.
How can one use art education to, as the Apple Corporation puts it, “Think
Different”?
What are the applications of an education in creativity and how can an
instructor produce projects that we inculcate a sense of creativity in
students?
Article
Continues
Combining things produces innovation. Have you ever seen a toothbrush
with a rubber grip? As a product it makes no sense at all, but the clear
channel in which such a product came to be shows clearly how combinations
from unrelated areas produces innovation. First there were rubber pencil
grips that slipped over yellow pencils for small hands, someone noticed
that this was more comfortable for large hands as the grip cushioned the
fingers holding the writing instrument. Someone wanted to innovate a toothbrush,
so they looked at other straight rod-like products that were held by the
hand and the rubber-grip toothbrush was born.
Silly, I know, but seeing what’s not there is at least important
as seeing what is.
The art of found objects:
There is an art student I know that spends a great deal of time walking
along the road side, every now and again she will reach down and pick
up something that caught her eye. These found objects are taken back to
her studio and integrated into existing works or are used as inspiration
for new work. The object is stripped of its original context and is ready
to be repurposed into a new, creative, context.
Learning to see shadows.
The first thing most people do when they begin to draw an object is to
draw an outline against a background, things exist against a plane and
are limited by their boundaries, so it seems perfectly sensible to represent
it that way. An interesting project is to see the shadows rather than
the boundaries. A human face can be represented by the shadows cast by
brow, mouth and nose. The shadow will extend off the side into eternity,
the face will begin with the smallest shadow cast.
The shadow of a chair exists with out boundaries, the darkness of its
shape fades into nothing as the shadow extends away from the object. By
drawing the shadow instead of the object we can begin to see a world without
boundaries.
Re-imagine an issue through a painting.
Language is a wonderful vehicle for expressing ideas through images; “Caught
on the horns of a dilemma”, “Hung out to dry”, “The
land where milk and honey flows”. All these sayings and many more
use an image to describe and catch a situation. Drawing and painting a
problem, view a situation rather than an object and providing a visual
representation can both instill an emotional value as well as be a place
to begin working on solutions. Global Warming? Fine, paint a world free
of global warming or damaged by global warming. What does it look like,
what are the specifics?
Is it a land of milk and honey or is it a world hung out to dry? I don’t
know but it sure would be interesting to talk about while painting it.
Break the rule; no cars? – Okay, how about traveling sidewalks.
Re-imagine through the power of art.
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Read our December esaay: New
Art Resources on the Web
Read our November essay: Change the World - One
Work of Art at a Time
Read our October essay: Primitive Art is
Not Art
Read our August essay: Shadow as Metaphor
in Art
Read our June essay: PBS' How Art Made the World
Read our May essay: What College Art Teachers
Expect from High School Students
Read our April essay: Technological Innovations
in Art Educations
Read our March essay: Does Handwriting have
a Future?
Read our February essay: Copyright and trademark
for the art educator
Read our January essay: Counseling your students
on choices for Higher Education
Read our December essay: Why Teaching Visual
Art is now a Necessity
Read our November essay: Teaching Collage as Social
Critic
Read our October essay: The Place of the
Body in Education
Read our September essay: The Ways Artists
Support Themselves
Read our August essay: Why students should copy
the great works
Read our July essay: Hidden Clues in Works of
Art
Read our June essay: The Mathematics of Art
Read our May essay: The Importance of School
Art Competitions
Read our January essay : Art History
and the Internet
Read our March essay: Ink Jet Printers
and the Color Wheel:
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