Art or Cookie Cutting?

I have been thinking about what happens to students' artwork after it is taken home. What do parents keep and what gets thrown away? I hope I can help develop my students sense of pride in what they create and I really hope I can help them create things that showcase their individuality. That said, I also hope that when they bring their creations home that their parents value the time and effort that has gone in to the piece. Art has the ability to bare the soul. A negative response to someone's creation can injure self-confidence and make a person utter the words "I am not artistic"..

I am also thinking of the stacks of stuff that my own children have brought home...I haven't exactly valued all of it and I feel (a little...just a little) guilty for that...but let me explain why I say it's only a little guilt and not a lot (please don't judge)...

It is hard to value "artwork" that includes "coloring in a picture", "cutting out on the line", and "gluing specific things on to specific spots". Especially when 3-4 of these come home each week (I'd need to buy a bigger house to save it all!) As far as I could see, these were not so much artistic creations as means to develop fine motor skills and the ability to follow directions--in which case if I save these things am I expected to save math worksheets and spelling lists too? So, after a month on the fridge, most of these items found their way to the recycling bin. Yes, I feel a little guilty. Every time I lowered one to the garbage I felt a pang of guilt...but how much is too much? I always saw value in pieces that I could see they put a lot of time and effort in to and I certainly cherish the items where I see that the ideas came from them. Furthermore, I always keep the pieces that mean a lot to them on an emotional level such as mothers day gifts and so on....even when they were required to follow a template. 

But even in grade six my son was bemoaning art class. He said he hated art. Art was boring. Art is hard. He'd say he's not good at art. Then I saw what they were doing! Templates. Rigid instructions. 29 pictures on the wall with minimal variations...well, with the exception of my son's which was either incomplete, lost, not started, or haphazardly put together. We had a big talk about effort. About accountability. About the fact that we may not like all the subjects in school but we are still required to do it and since we have to be there and we have to do it we should at least put in our best effort...(gasp for breath...). NOPE. No desire to even be bothered. Can I really blame him? I could barely be bothered to look at this wall of cookie cutter art myself.

Then the most amazing thing happened. After studying a unit on Ancient Greece each student could pick two projects from a list of about 10 choices. The options ranged from a research paper to a sculpture. My son found a picture of an artifact from King Tut's tomb and thought he'd like to try making a painting of it. I brought him out one of my canvases and let him pick out acrylic paints. I supplied him with brushes and gave him a brief lesson on how to hold a paint brush and how to pick up paint, and I showed him couple different paint strokes. Then I left him to create. Hours went by (and I mean about 6-7 hours!) before he stepped away. What he created was amazing! (For a boy who hated art!). What a surprise to everyone...even himself! He got an A on his Social Studies project and his teacher commented that he had some talent and should continue painting.  He barely got a C in Art. Well, there you go.

(I will attach a photograph of his painting when I go home on the weekend...proud mama!)

So what can I learn from this? Well, I hope to come up with art lessons that will allow creativity to find a place in each student. I will give them criteria but not so specific and so much that it stifles their individuality or their creativity. I will give options. I will let my students know that I value effort and that creativity sometimes means taking a risk and watching that risk turn in to artwork.