PEP bangles and earrings reclaimed-in association with Zara Collins

About creativity

About creativity
The points below seem to define what art means or the definitions of aesthetic, leaning more towards art philosophy than about creativity to a person with an artist’s background like me. You ask what it is, or the motivations of creativity personally:
• I feel compelled psychologically and that not making art is detrimental to my sanity.
• It is what I do best so, it is both a pleasure for my ego (Freud) and its is the highest on my ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’.
• It is essential to how I operate and how I engage with other people around me.
• It is God’s mandate that I share my talents according to his will.
• I have used it as the force of good in educating young minds.
The above points are relevant to me only but creativity or art is defined by non-artists and scientists like anthropologists as the measure by which a civilization's mettle is tested in time, including the dot points below.
-legitimises an institution's and society’s nomothetic & idiographic frameworks ifor vocational purposes (Article: Culture and assessment: nomothetic and idiographic considerations from:Career Development Quarterly Article date:June 1, 2009 Author: Diemer, Matthew A.; Gore, Paul A., Jr..
-functional, pleases the eye and stimulates the mind all at once.
-expression (nothing to do with the Expressionist movement).
-representation 'memesis'-imitation (Plato).
-significant form, (Bell & Fry).
-frozen emotion (Tolstoy).
-pleases the divine nature of man, elevation of crude Phillistines into men of culture and refinement (Hegel)
-an organic whole and made from complex (early Weisz) disparate parts that would not have made sense if taken apart.
-too complicated to define (late Weisz).
-exercises the free play of the imagination (Kant).
-pure intuition (Croce)
-polemical in intention (Wittgenstein)
-intertextuality (Foucault)
-satisfies the imaginative need for social harmony (Parker) and 'group think' (Orwell).

Roseville workshop 2010

Hello, I've just had a satisfying all day workshop teaching clay handworking techniques to different ages from years 5-16. I also had a few doing trash to treasure (jewellery). I must thank Gwynn, Warwick, Helen and Jackie for helping out plus the older kids who helped with materials distribution.

The clay workshop had over thirty kids and without these fantastic adult helpers, I'm sure i would not have been able to cope. Noone had pointed out the fact that I forgot to demonstrate the coil pot making technique. That was very embarassing. Also the fact that I only had a few about 8-9 in each class at the trash to treasure jewellery making was a bonus in the afternoon. Even the boys were very keen to keep making things to wear. I bet they really are going to wear those pieces and not give them to their Mums. It was such a pleasure to teach kids who want to be there and keen to learn. There were no issues at all. Each child actually did an average of 4 pieces each. We only had 20 mins solid work time. It never ceases amazes me how creative and imaginative these kids can be, every time.

My admiration to the organisers of the day as well. I think it went very smoothly. It was by far better than October last year's workshop. the attendance was twice the size of last years.

Jewellery now put online

I've had so many people asking me when am I going to put my Jewellery work online and to put prices on them. Here they are below. Keep scrolling down because I don't know how to make different pages. As long you can see what they are, I can't say that it matters. Please let me know if you need something custom-made because I also like commission work better than if I was churning them out. That is the last thing I want to do. I know I know, I should be more professional and do multiple production work but I get bored doing the same design. I also know that you think I sell my work too cheaply (you would have seen how expensive I sell my artwork in comparison- see above) and I promise to put the price up a little on the jewellery but not too much. Otherwise my cash flow will suffer. I have to live you know.

Thank you for supporting me.

Appearances, editing photos

The best way to edit photos is to take a very good photo to start with, then you don't need to change very much.

I am just not that good at photoshop really especially if it is my own face I am editing. I can't take good photos of people. It is a specific talent to do that. I am never happy with my face because I see so many very beautiful faces everyday in comparison. So many of our celebrities must think the same way because they look weirder and weirder like my photo here. I don't look like that. I look uglier and darker. It says a lot about my prejudices that I even care about appearances. If you say you don't care about looks, it's a lie.

Nearly everybody care about looks, the beauty industry is worth billions of dollars.

It works so hard to make women and increasingly men feel inadequate and ashamed of the appearance of their face and body. The more prominent or famous one is, the worse it must be I imagine. so, there is a type of consolation in the thought that I am not alone in my self-loathing of my pockmarked moon-face. The saying that beauty is only skin deep is probably relevant here but I'm sure it was penned down by an attractive person or at the very least, an ordinary person who scrubbed up very well, given half the chance. The fact is one cannot get to know a person better if at first glance they put you in a box labelled, 'not a real Aussie'. Now please don't think I am a racist, oh alright, go ahead maybe I am but only in reverse. People who don't like me because I look the way I do are probably not the sort I want to associate with anyway.

The older I get the uglier I become. It seems like our faces are like rags, they accumulate dirt and grot. What is really ironic about my pursuit for an ideal is that many light-skinned white women that I idolised is that they would put tanning lotion to have my skin colour. I can't understand that. I guess this is why the late Michael Jackson lightened his skin so much to be liked. It is also very disturbing that he is well-known for abusing little white children. The fact that a lighter-skinned negro is in the White house hardly change deeply ingrained prejudices that is completely unavoidable. When I was working in pharmacy, we have so many dark-skinned girls (some are actually darker than mine-wonders of wonders) coming in so often asking for skin lighteners. It is actually dangerous to do this because most preparations around do not bleach the skin evenly. The effect is patchy, extremely unsightly. Most actually peel off the top layer of skin. The dark pigments- Melanin acts like a filter and actually protects dark-skinned people from the harmful rays (invisible UVA-UVB) of the harsh Australian sun. This doesn't mean that just because you are black and beautiful does not mean you don't need any sunscreen at all. Really dark skin is very useful because it protects the person for a longer duration, rather like if you are going from shade to shade. Dark people still get sunburnt but less likely to develop skin cancer than redheads from the overexposure. So, being dark-skin is not so bad, is it? When this thin layer is stripped away in the case of people pretending to look caucasian, the result is inevitably skin cancer! Besides, who are they really kidding. So despite the fact that I can't see my face after 8pm longer during long light saving days), I will never bleach my skin except on photoshop.

It is not only about skin colour. I see so many people like me with the same racial background but blessed with fine and delicate features like a straight, more pointy nose and no flaring nostrils like mine. I know all about people saying, 'If we all look doll-like, the world would be a boring place.' I know that different races hold different standards of beauty but that was then, with globalisation, it is changing and people who look like the model for ogres just gets more pressured to buy things so they look 'beautiful'. So many of fantasise that we have a Hollywood doll face. We have many reasons, mine is that attractive people have it so easy and less barriers to success. Employers are going to give you a job if you look easy on the eye, in the event that we have similar abilities, the same degrees and qualifications. It is not what you know but what you look like. People are bound to choose the more fair and beautiful among us because we are wired like that. It's been proven that people with even, fine and symmetrical features are considered more attractive and desirable, no matter what the racial background. Although it can be sexual but this tendency to choose the aesthetically pleasing applies even to the inanimate. Infants are calmed to see a beautiful face and cries in fear when an ugly person with uneven features looks at them. This is why I try to not look at babies' faces because its just so embarassing when they cry after seeing my attempts to smile.

I am probably being unfair here. I am married to an Anglo who is a lot older than I am. He looked better when he was younger of course just as I did. I also have a son, he is half Australian and half Filipino. He looks better than his parents. My hubby hates his hawk-like nose. We jokingly say that it arrives half an hour earlier than the rest of him. He probably feels bad that I laugh so loudly at this and hurt his feelings. He would retaliate by saying that my parents must have thrown me against the wall when I was young so often that I ended up with a pug face. That will shut me up pretty quickly.

When I am with young attractive people, they look so pretty and becoming and treat me like a normal person (of course) that I forget what I look like. If you close your eyes while talking to me, I don't sound 'different' or ethnic, no accent other than the Australian inflection. Then, we go past some reflective windows and I get a jolt of what I really look like. I am not white! Then the depression sets in. Much later, people would miss me and ring to find out why I've been avoiding people and forgetfulness will set in again. So, the cycle continues. These days are marginally better with the arrival of email and facebook. I can avoid mirrors at home and I hate going out for this very reason. Shop windows are just so cruel. I prefer to shop at Vinnies and op shops because the lighting is bad, everything is cheaper and the cut is better (I can pick out European or designer labels for a song).

A blind person will never know that I am not a dinky-di aussie. People like me pretend that they are not different but this self-deception bites us in the tail at the unexpected times. When I was younger (in my teens and twenties) when I first arrived in Australia, I was proud of the fact that I was 'unusual' but my difference is tarnished, not bright and shiny anymore. I had long periods of feeling being truly Australian due to the fact that Australian people around me treated me very well just as though I was one of them. Then, something happens, little things that noone else notices would highlight that I am an Asian and that Asians seems to be everywhere. I have this inner horrible voice in my head, my avatar (who is a racist) that says, 'Asians like you are taking over'. So, I become very strange and trying to look invisible, hang around at the edges of crowds, hoping not to look too conspicuous. I try to avoid tourists and this inner turmoil changes me completely, from being a fun loving girl to a morose and anti-social grump. To compensate for not being a blonde, blue-eyed, I developed an interesting personality to compensate for the 'ugliness', granted that it might be a subjectively perceived difference.

The strange thing is that I actually like to talk to strangers or tourists from elsewhere when I feel confident (read not feeling self-conscious of who I am). I can talk to anyone from any background. I especially love talking to visitors when I do my volunteer work. Reaching the gulf between strangers always give me a thrill. In doing so, I feel a large amount of accomplishment in overtaking my shyness. Most people I know would be surprised if they read this blog (I am safe on that count since I have very few friends) since most people I've met all think I am a confident person, verging on arrogance sometimes. It is all an act!

After reading this, you will have a fair idea about the pathetic feelings and insecurities that I have in terms of appearance but do not let this mislead you about my intelligence. I do have a brain behind the ugly face. What I wrote here are my opinions only and I am speaking for myself. I'm sure many PROBABLY never had the same feelings but I would not bet a great deal of money on that. Vanity makes fools of us all.

WORTH LIVING FOR

This is the longest I have posted my longest in a Facebook Philosophy discussion board topic. I think I should share it here since it took nearly an afternoon to write. It was no chore however, quite a pleasure to write.

'What is worth living for, other than life itself?' We can live for (not in a particular order):

-To feel the sweet breeze after a stifling hot day

-to see rainbows

-watermelons and the juices dripping on your lips and fingers after a long summer walk

-rain after a drought

-cosy fire on a deep winter's night

-seeing the stars on a clear summers sky

-eating toasted marshmallows with friends around a fire

-exciting talk about philosophy when everyone want to talk at the same time.

- my son's dazzling and devastating smile

-the taste of real chocolate after not having one for four years

-the state of clear mountain spring water at the source

-a night of singing, storytelling & dancing while camping

-the taste of freshly caught fish roasted on the wood charcoal fire outdoors.

-my boss telling me, 'Thanks Jo, I wouldn't know what to do if you weren't here'.

-My son telling me, 'I love you very much Mummy in the whole wide, wide world.'

-finding a trashy but gripping, escapist novel -gossiping with by best girlfriend

-rereading Shakespeare's sonnets

-when I cooked a steak and the timing was perfect, no more pinkness showing but still tender & juicy

-watching my favourite tv programs

-crying at a ridiculous romantic movie, book or story

-a special date with hubby at a hotelroom overseas

-talking to a very intelligent and erudite guest at dinner

-taste of port every christmas night -daydreaming about naughty things

-looking at a beautiful face

-talking to a stranger on public transport only to discover you are next

-door neighbours or something.

-penning a 12 stanza poem down in 24 hours

-writing down an astonishingly good essay and get a high distinction for it.

-singing to a full moon and feel your blood calling to it

-seeing a solder flow on metal- its magic

-Drawing the nude

-painting a picture in watercolour and it looks good although you thought it was not when still wet

-discovering a new alcoholic drink or cocktail I never had before

-being taught a new dance by a beautiful dancer with a sweet mellifluous voice

-thinking about life plans

-thinking about the meaning of life and someone makes a good joke to lighten the mood

-when good friends make up after a silly quarrel

-saying silent thanks

-giving a eulogy on a good person's life work and achievements

-be a shoulder to cry on

-wearing something new

-listening to a symphony in a hall with perfect acoustics

-acting in a play put together by amateurs in half hour

-rereading that essay again and again

-family reunions

-going to a new place you've never been before.

-getting lost in a familiar city on a holiday.

-learning something new about your pet subject

-'talking' to pets, grooming and stroking them while they dream

-my cat saving me from a snake coiled under the egg tray in the jungle.

-a butterfly landing on your arm

-your peers acknowledging you as leader and 'forced' to take up a post,embarassingly pressed on you, even though you feel like a fraud.

-see evidence that there really is karma returning sevenhundredfold or some kind of divine justice in real life

-see a light of understanding in a pupil's eyes.

-a letter from a ex-student that she/he idolised you and was an inspiration in their life.

- laughing at a joke with a full belly laugh and see other laugh with you

-getting an honorary doctorate degree from major university in a country where you were born. -helping someone anonymously

-putting a bully in his/her place, contrite and silent

-an unexpected and welcome visitor

-money lent when you really need it at the right time.

- a meal when you were starving for three days in a foreign country

- to speak a language you have not spoken for years

-riding a bicycle a motorbike without a helmet -a compliment from an admirer

-seeing a shy person becoming very confident and assertive -scent of a flower and caressing your cheek with the petals like soft velvet

I could go on and on......but I've the rest of your post to address.

'What difference do humans make in the long run (deep time)?'

Deep time sounds good, the aborigines myths said that their ancestors are creators beings that went to 'sleep' in the deep deep distant past- way back when there was only one protocontinent called Gondwanaland, they form the mountains and the features of the environment around them. It was said the human beings were there to tend to them and to continue with songs and dances needed to keep them happy, lulled by the vibrations so to speak and stay asleep. If they don't have enough people performing their duties regularly at key times of the year, the land breaks apart and it will be the end of the world.

As far as I'm concerned it is a good excuse to party. In fact we have a three week festival at high summer when the weather is perfect, when everyone just go to the park and enjoy live music in Sydney. It's great. I think Aborigines still do their corroborees in the bush. I've never been to one because outsiders are forbidden. Not even the prime ministers or the queen's governoress general is allowed in some of them.

'If the answer is survival of the species, I ask why.'

I don't know why, the survival mechanism/will to live is the strongest human instinct, I suppose. 'If the answer is because of the desires of a divinity, I say prove it.' Personally, I think divinity does exist. Someone said , I forgot, maybe Sartre?, if there wasn't, someone will find invent a divinity anyway that people can understand. Christians believe that their god knows how many hairs they have on their head-an intimate god. To prove it is another thing entirely. I guess we only have our personal experience to go by and the scary stories told in the camp fire. The curse stick pointed at a wrongdoer and they fall down and die or dying people healed after someone said an incantation but its all sounds silly in the age of rationality, but there must be a germ of truth to it all.

'If the answer is to fulfill our destiny.... well, you take it from here.'

I don't know for sure but I think everything is not predetermined obviously, too many random things. Besides we are too close in by bundles of blood and sinew to 'see' everything. It's like asking an ant if his anthill is all there is. Not that the ant is less important than us, everything is interdepedent in this web of life of which as human beings IMHO are a major players. This makes sense to me.

Teaching art is not a walk in the park

Do you think art is a lark or a bit of a bludge? If the answer to this question is yes, you are the reader I am looking for.

I don't know how many times I have heard this from teachers in other disciplines, other than in the arts. Most teachers think that teaching art is easy, as easy as a walk in the park. It implies that art teachers are lazy, stupid slobs who teach art because they couldn't make it or didn't become famous artists. It might be true for a handful of misguided individuals. I can bet they didn't remain an art teacher and did something else for money. To follow this bit of logic, it would also imply that science teachers are failures because they teach science rather becoming employed physicists or engineers.

Do you think it is easy to become a well-paid artist? If you think so, you are deluding yourself. There are only a handful of lucky people who made money from art in Australia. So if it is not easy to earn money from art, it must also follow that to teach art, one must be exceptionally good at it to turn out wealthy artists. Artists like surgeons study for a long time, often all their lives. But unlike cosmetic surgeons for example, they are not paid very well. A really good cosmetic surgeon earns millions while comparably, a public sculptor like Kapoor, on the same rung of achievement, might only earn thousands (it might be in the hundreds of thousands but you get my drift). Fame is another matter entirely. High profile movie celebrities are paid very well for their art and hence, have the money to pay their cosmetic surgeons. The reason for this is as plain as the nose on your face or how it is placed on it. To make matters worse, teachers in general are ill-paid, overworked and pressured to be everything at once to every person in the school infrastructure. They are blamed when things go wrong all the time. The visual art teacher is the most vilified of all, second only to dance teachers. Every one knows that art is at the bottom of the rung in the subject hierarchy taught in schools. It also follows that visual art teachers do not teach because of the money but because of the love of art.

So, why do I want to be an art teacher then? Come to think of it, why do teachers in other disciplines want to teach art so much? They are lying if they say it is because it is easy. They do because every kid wants to be in the art classroom. Let's say you are a substitute teacher who normally teaches math but taught art for a day and thought, 'Wow that was easy to teach.' Why do you think the kids are so willing to be taught, well behaved and the material is organised, anyone with a brain can follow it?

Who do you think organised the material? Who trained the pupils so that they actually ask and answer questions in long sentences and heaven forbid they actually argue with you? The experienced art teacher did all these, that's who. You are there for one day and had a great time because of all those other days of superb organization, varied and engaging ways to engage students applied by the absent art teacher. In fact you are so amazed your 'problem smart alecs' students turned into angels in the art class.

I am not saying this is always the case but for most teachers who look down upon 'useless' art teachers, there is only one thing I can say to you, please think again before you say, 'It is ONLY an art class- no big deal'. If you are an English teacher, art teachers can be your friends in terms of literacy. We help students become articulate in expressing opinions, develop a wider vocabulary (gained through art appreciation and criticism) and also students become more confident in writing and referencing during art history and theory lessons.

If you are a maths teacher, you would have been amazed how much pupils know about Platonic solids, fraction, trigonometry, decimals and geometry. All of these are required in knowing about proportion in classical, sculpture and applied art and technology. If you are a Chemistry teacher, artists also need rudimentary knowledge in material suspensions, chemical handling, safety in the studio especially now that contemporary art embraced every conceivable material. Conservators need the knowledge of your field but it also needs sensitivity and artistic feeling to do this job well, if at all. History straddles most of art history, so there's no need to denigrate art teachers just because you think your subject is more useful or important. In other words, teaching art, non-representational art in particular is not a walk in the park. It is like walking up hill with on one leg without any crutches. If I was teaching landscape, sure it might be a little easier with a projector but why bother? Why not just take a photo?

Of course teaching mediocre art is easy but being a good art teacher requires more than knowledge of subject area, on which you seem to put so much importance. I can teach any subject imaginable for a day- even Maths (despite not knowing the methods or unqualified to teach at secondary level), but if a principal will let me, I can. It is not easy and unsustainable in the long-term and if one knows the subject well. You might be able to teach art for a day and call it easy but you will have destroyed the students' inquiring mind, stifled growing imagination and killed a hunger for art. Yes, teaching art is walk in the park if you want to turn out obscure artists by a mediocre teacher.

Thinking like a designer

Do you think the title of this post sounds pretentious? If so, move on and read something else.

How can one think like a designer? I hope this blog will give you some helpful insights. Are there ways of thinking as a designer? Yes, there are! Is there a specific way of being a designer? The answer for the last question is 'no'. There is no one way of being a designer because every designer is different. 'Well duh!', you say.

Although I never think of myself as a 'designer' with a capital D, I happen to think that this word is laden with unreasonable expectations of a mere mortal. I am talking about fashion designers being looked upon as 'gods' of fashion and creators of cultural phenomena throughout the globe for women everywhere. If it has a designer label, it automatically becomes something desirable, sexy and expensive. This is not envy talking but talking about facts. If one of those designer happen to read this (fat chance!), they will agree with me. Every designer is only as good as the last season. They must continually prove themselves over and over in reinventing the 'wheel' that we call the multi-billion dollar fashion global industry.

Other than to say the obvious so far, I can say this. I can tell you how I think. Take only what you like and forget the rest. Why take on more clutter than you need? There is no easy way but I follow a few simple steps that makes it easier for me to escape a set pattern or if I have noticed that I am stuck on a rut/tired & tried formulaic methods in fulfilling a design brief.

What is a design brief? A design brief is the list of specifications, criteria and overview of outcomes set by the client, which must be followed by the designer to a letter. This list will often help you pinpoint a potential problem or problems not only for the client but also for the designer. Reading a brief will let an experienced designer straight away if it is doable or too time-consuming. It is in the brief that you will find the set of limitations and other factors in coming up with a design that your client/s want/s. By looking and analysing the brief closely, you will be able to put together a return brief, to give back to your clients so, they can have an idea on how you will approach the ways in finding the solution to a problem or brief. After all time is money. If you don't care about money, you must be an artist not a designer. Not that artists don't need a business acumen also. More so, if you don't have an income to support your art.

What is a return brief? It is a piece of document that proves you can do the job and how you are going to do it. Depending on the type of design, often a return brief is required. For competitions and other competitive areas such as construction bidding, a return brief is de rigeur. A return brief should contain a timeline, as your experience grows, your judgement of the duration jobs will be immediate. You will know straight away how long it will take. 'Bread and butter' are simple jobs that will be easy things to assemble, cheap to produce and have a high profit margin per cost/time/materials ratio. Often the concepts underlying these events/objects/services are very complex and very exciting even though how they are put together into a coherent role is astoundingly simple. Putting them together in such a way is your job as a designer. A return brief also need to have a problem identified. A 'design problem' is not the same as the mathematical equation meaning of the word. It means the big picture of the project. Laying them out in an attractive and understandable manner to people who doesn't know anything about you or how you think is not only important but how deeply you thought about them will determine if you get the job or not. Ordinary people on the street should 'get' your idea straight away but visually and verbally. A return brief should also contain the 'conceptual framework' or shortened 'concept'. For example, the concept for Apple computers is incredibly simple no less complex. It is a fruit/vegetable but not ordinary like the tomato. The apple is commonly known the fruit of knowledge in the lost eden. There other things you must include also but this is not the place to look for them, you need to see the client for more information. However, never forget to include a costing of the project.

Now you have a problem and you now know what is exactly required. You can do a rush job by doing a tried and tired formula or if you want something exceptional with x-factor, you will now be putting on your designer caps on, be creative and fullfil the brief at the same time. Neat! I am a mother and I have been thinking that coming with a new and exciting design is rather like pregnancy. It is not comfortable but it is worthwhile. The rewards (no housework for a while, eat what you want, glowing skin, no pressure to look fashionable anymore, no fear of getting pregnant, feeling sexy and like a million dollars) overweigh the bad (morning sickness, not drinking alcohol, feeling fat, bloated veins and sleeping on your side only).

Stages in thinking like a designer:

1. First trimester-research or asking why why why. Why is that something the way it is? Why did your competitors came up with the existing solutions? Why did the design problem happen? At this stage like a new mother-to-be, you are hungry for information about your developing fetus. Most of the time you are constantly thinking or daydreaming about those sexual encounter resulted in conception. A designer is like a sponge and soaks everything at this stage. Think of names, names, names!

2. Second trimester, why is the brief, the way it is? You can find out as much information as possible, at the brainstorming stage no information are so silly or irrelevant not to be included, you should have a fat folio of source material, a colour scrapbook that inspires you by now and understood the things that 'bother' you or something about the project the disturb you somehow. At this stage you should be a pregnancy expert. Pregnant women really start 'showing'. Your scrapbook should be bloated with information. They walk and talk differently. A designer lives, talks and dreams of the project. You are often seen muttering and talking to yourself and inanimate objects. You could barely see the vague parameters of the design, tantalisingly close. This experience is like feeling the baby kick you from the inside.

3. Third and final trimester-Cull, cull, cull! You know you are at this stage because you have culled your resources or better still you have groups of resources put aside just in case you want to revisit them again. Often this is the frustrating stage when you know what you want but things gets in the way so, what you do is doing a process of elimination. You even recreate situations exactly in finding out why you wrote in your diary that something is fantastic and key to the design but you lost it somehow. It looks boring and you wonder why. So, you bought the exact brand of tea that you were drinking then and did exactly what 'it' was at the exact time of day. Memory is often tricky, it needs the right smell, taste and sounds to revisit it exactly.

This final stage depends on the type of person you are but it is rewarding for most because this is when a new design is born.

How do you know you have killer design? You'll know because you are possessive of your new baby or you might be even be proud of your creation and show it to everyone immediately. How do you know the design is finished? You'll know because you have edited out everything that are superfluous and reduced the idea to its very essence. Take more and there will nothing left but a shell and you don't get any goosebumps when you look at it. The finished design should look right, beautiful and above all answer the brief exactly.

Reference:

Sievewright, Simon (2007) Research and Design, Switzerland, AVA Publishing, ISBN 2-940373-41-8 & 978-2-940373-41-3

Links to other blogs

These are links to my previous blogs. Cut and paste the links on your browser if you want to leave this site. I must warn you that these were my earlier efforts and so they contain many embarassing mistakes.

http://jvcgibbs.blog.friendster.com/

http://jvcgibbs.blog.friendster.com/fundangles/

http://jvcgibbs.blog.friendster.com/category/designer-jewellery/

http://jvcgibbs.blog.friendster.com/category/movie-reviews/

http://jvcgibbs.blog.friendster.com/category/uncategorized/

Thoughts on positive thinking

There is something to be said about positive thinking and visualisation of intended outcomes. It works! I will set out to prove to you that only does it work but it is also a good exercise in regulating your mood and emotional state of mind. Although it may not at first be apparent immediately. Take what I do as an art teacher for instance. I often visualise what my students could get out of the lesson that I am planning. Since the lesson is still in its planning stage, this is a good time to mentally get a grip on possible scenarios that may eventuate as a result of my aims and objectives. The thinking stage and working out how students would react to my lesson will have ironed out awkward wordings, embarassing faux pas and confusing ways of engaging kids through inappropriate examples.

To you it might all be speculations, all airy-fairy and unsubstantiated but there are basis for this thing that you might call merely, 'wishful thinking'. For example, a practical ceramics lesson can be potentially cringe-laden to young people if handled insensitively and inappropriately for the ages for whom the lesson is intended. There are also gender issues (for male & female teachers) that may arise as you do demonstrations that might involve bodily contact (on second thoughts try to limit this to a few occasions or none at all). It is a sad fact that teachers could no longer reassure students in distress, who might actually need it just because such actions might be misconstrued.

To get back to the Ceramics lesson example, if you are using the turn table, remember to wear proper and comfortable clothing (try to do this everyday, the more comfortable you are, the more you are also confident). Please don't make the mistake of displaying a decollatage (bosom) as bend over in controlling the clay. Although an experienced potter make it look effortless, to the beginner it is very difficult to 'center' your clay and keep it in one place. Make sure you do a question and answer session about every aspect of the activity before you let the kids have a go.

Prior to this demonstration, it would be advisable that you have briefed them in the basics and they know the terms, techniques, health & safety issues and problem-solving tricks when things go awry. Like all practical lessons, you would already have trained students into a routine that suits you. Please not to do the cleaning up yourself. Let it all be part of the lesson itself. How and why, I imagined you asked? This is where positive thinking and visualisation comes in. It applies here because it is a mistake to assume that kids will do as adults would in similar circumstances. When you imagine that they will be orderly in handling clay, they won't. If you assumed that they will go on a queue when in using coil-maker, they wont but more likely than not, they will quarrel on whose turn it is, or grab bits and start throwing then at each other.

When I say positive thinking, it doesn't mean picturing kids being orderly and then do nothing or not revising the plan if you can anticipate problems with the plan, and, just hope for the best because you either have done the lesson hundreds of times or is pressed for time. It doesn't work like that. Every lesson and every class is very different. Too many factors impinge on your cohort's behaviour before they even set foot in the classroom. Positive thinking is about anticipating events and precognitive visualisation. If you don't have a plan b, you are seriously making sure kids in your school will hate art. There should be at least several alternative sequences of events that you can take up. Use your plan as point of departure always keep it as your guideline. This is it is called a lesson plan and not a bible.

Positive thinking also does not mean expecting things to go as planned exactly. An art lesson almost never does according to plan. There is always something that is overlooked and unexpected. Being a good art teacher is making sure you can survive the hiccups and turning around an untoward incident into an advantage instead. Also the exciting part of being a practical teacher in art is recovering from embarassing and disastrous situations and learn from them so that they may never reoccur. This is how positive thinking and effective visualisation of scenarios in the planning stage helps you become a better art teacher.