Happy Monday to all my young friends and fellow teachers out there! (The children are absolutely and unequivocally some of my best teachers!!!) I have prepared a fun video tutorial and art lesson on making expressive faces. Keep watching the video til the very end where you will see some of the outtakes I made trying to create this video! (I discard lots of videos!!!) Mistakes are WONDERFUL!!! They are part of learning and essential to being alive in the world! So have fun, make mistakes, get messy and STAY CURIOUS.
As you may remember, each studio year begins with a research question and that question sets the tone for my year of learning alongside your children. Where we will go is always a mystery but how we will get there is informed by the research question. This year I chose the following:
What might adults learn alongside young children about befriending the unknown, the art of imperfection and the value of risk taking?
I know... WHAT WAS I THINKING????? It is strangely apropos to have unwittingly selected this question for my year of inquiry. I am certainly learning a great deal about myself and the many ways I try to resist the unknown or distract myself from it. I wonder what the children can teach us right now about living this question. I have no doubt they are teaching you A LOT every day. Sometimes they teach us patience by demanding that we draw on every reserve we can muster. Sometimes they teach us to marvel at the spider weaving its web outside our window. I am sure this time together is wonderful AND exhausting. I am a mother of two children myself. My son Owen is nineteen and home from college indefinitely and my younger son Bodhi is in seventh grade starting his first official day of a spring break devoid of playdates and planned excursions. Having children home full time at any age can be absolutely delightful and unbelievably taxing, often at the same time. I have no doubt you are experiencing something similar.
I think about your children all the time. Many of whom I have known for years. They live more fully in the moment than we do as adults and perhaps because of that, they have an inviable form of resilience. As a teacher I have benefited from their wonder, curiosity and enthusiasm. In fact they have reminded me year after year, that these essential traits of childhood are within me still. I can exercise them like any muscle. I can respond with curiosity and wonder when faced with unknown circumstances. I am trying to flex those muscles, imperfectly, each day.
I offer these videos in an effort to meaningfully connect with your children around art. That said, I've also worked with children for nearly two decades and know the value of slowing down, living in the moment and observing their curiosity, moments of concentration and wonder. The truth is that young children are always learning and if honest, they are also always teaching! I want to tell each of you that you are doing a great job right now, whatever you are doing and I hope that you can find ways to stay curious, tend to yourselves with gentleness and find moments of peace in each day.
I will see you back here again tomorrow. For more art with Angelina.
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