What I’m REALLY Teaching Through Public Art Projects
(This year I’m posting three times per month: WORDS on the 3rd (or close to it), PICTURES on the 13th, and SOUND on the 23rd.
This is the second installment of WORDS, which might look like a normal blog post, because those are made up of mostly… words.)
I used to blush like crazy when I was a kid. It was horrible, because it drew even more eyes on me at the precise moments when I was already mortified by unwanted attention. My shyness felt like a curse, and I think it really was. It’s a state of believing that you have nothing to contribute, nothing valuable to say, and going unnoticed seems like the best option. (I’m not talking about introversion or sensitivity, two labels I wear proudly. Shyness is different.)
Fortunately I evolved out of my shyness. I don’t need to be in the spotlight, but I DO have things to say now. When opportunities arise, like anytime I’m making art with people, I say them. I use art to make beautiful things, sure. But more importantly, I want to use it to change the world.
Let me show you what I mean.
This piece of paper led the way.
Unpacking from an Epic Trip
The following press release concisely sums up the project I just facilitated in the lovely Central Coast area of California:
Press Release
DATE: February 2, 2020
Marlie Schmidt, Principal
OVER 500 ARTISTS COLLABORATE TO CREATE A MOSAIC MURAL MASTERPIECE
(San Luis Obispo, CA) – The Los Ranchos Elementary community will be celebrating the collaborative creation of a mosaic mural with an unveiling ceremony tomorrow, Monday, February 3 at 9:25 a.m. The unveiling will take place at Los Ranchos Elementary, 5785 Los Ranchos Road, San Luis Obispo.
Over 500 artists helped create this mural. It was a collaborative effort involving all students from Transitional Kindergarteners to 6th graders, staff members, and over 100 parents. Each student created a tile with their Children’s Creative Project teacher, Bonnie Johnson earlier this month.
Professional Artist Pam Consear, of All Hands Art (https://www.allhandsart.com/) led this inspirational and delightful project over the entire week. This large 16’ X 5’ mural highlights the school’s motto: We take care of ourselves. We take care of each other. We take care of this place. Ms. Consear has designed and organized dozens and dozens of community mosaic murals throughout California.
Principal Marlie Schmidt stated, “It has been so inspiring to have the entire Los Ranchos School community involved in this collaborative process of creativity that will grace our school for years to come.”
The community is invited to the unveiling to celebrate this creative, collaborative process and masterpiece. It will beautify the school for years to come.
-END-
[Note to self: Figure out how to write and send press releases about future projects! This one Marlie wrote prompted the local TV station to show up and create a little clip for the evening news in SLO, spreading good news for once.]
I’m still processing everything that happened during that 10 day whirlwind. Plus I’m a day late on my self-imposed blogging schedule, so I’ll lay out some partially-formed thoughts, for your reflection.
I’m Gonna Own It
First, it felt fantastic to put all my skills to use. Since moving to Portland in mid-2017 I’ve mostly been on a mural-making hiatus. I needed the break, and I’ll be fine if I never return to the days of leading a dozen or so community projects per year and schlepping boxes of tiles and 50-pound bags of thin set mortar in and out of my car every day. And yet I built up a very specialized skill set during that stretch. There just aren’t many people around who can command the attention of a room full of 5 year-olds and a room full of 8 year-olds or 11 year olds (and also converse with adults), who have organizational chops, artistic sensibility, an understanding of construction materials, and the flexibility to work in an unfamiliar environment with whoever shows up to help. Who can gather ideas from kids’ drawings and comments from the staff, and transmute them into a workable mosaic design, then come up with hands-on ways for 15 different classes of 20 - 32 students each (grades pre-K to 6, in rapid succession over a 3-day period) to somehow contribute to moving the project forward so that it can be completed by the end of the week, with fantastic results. Oh, and put 25 college students from Cal Poly to use during their three hour site visit, in the classroom with the 32 fourth graders who are here to work on the mural. Yeah, my head did some spinning.
The only way I can manage it is by calling on the forces of Divine Creativity and also my daughter Elena, who was a huge help with all those kids! Then my friend Cindy came down from Oakland later in the week to take over as instruction-giver when I was tapped out from talking, and to help bring us to the finish line.
I’m not going to downplay my skills, though. Women do enough hiding of our own lights, and we need to stop it. I know I’m good at this work, and it felt great to be so appreciated by my co-conspirators—particularly Marlie, the super-dedicated principal, and Chelsea, my daughters’ beloved 4th grade teacher in Oakland years ago, who now teaches in SLO and set this whole thing in motion. I appreciated them right back. It was a true collaboration and we’re proud of it. Why not brag a little? We just did something amazing together! Just us and our team of 500.
Questions for you: Do you have special skills that are rusty from lack of use? Do you downplay the skills you do use, because you were trained to be humble? Does that attitude still serve you? Where can you find space to do some healthy bragging?
Warning: Sermon Ahead
Second, I got to preach a bit. Remember up top when I mentioned what a shy kid I was? These days I have plenty of things to say, and I seize opportunities when they come along. For example, here are some things I’ve heard a million times:
Adult volunteer: “I don’t have a creative bone in my body. Give me an easy job, so I don’t mess up the project.”
6th grader, after his first 30-minute attempt at mosaic: “I learned I’m not good at this.”
I get it, because I probably would have said the same things about myself years ago. Now I recognize those words as the creative wound of a soul who was told by someone—their 3rd grade teacher, a friend or parent or sibling—that they lacked artistic ability. Or they picked up the societal message, like I did, that only specially-anointed people could become artists, and I wasn’t one of them.
That is so much bullshit.
It’s a relic of our patriarchal, capitalistic society that makes a competition out of e v e r y t h i n g. It turns art into a battlefield of judgment where there are winners and losers, when it should be an arena for self-exploration. I don’t buy into it anymore. I’ve witnessed too many adults, too late in life, who have wasted decades feeling shame around their creativity—or their perceived lack of it—and have shut down. How different would our world be if all those people (are you one of them?) were engaged in following their curiosity instead, unearthing their own unique marks and connecting with their deepest selves? Actually feeling their feelings, and giving them a useful form of expression, not simply letting them fester? Making things for the pure joy of it, without the burden of evaluating and justifying every single choice they made? Imagine what we would all gain if, rather than giving up art because we aren’t “the best” (whatever that means), we showed each other something true about ourselves? A new perspective. Our own interpretation.
Of course, that’s not the lecture I gave to the first graders. They’ don’t need it. By about 5th grade, though, the comparisons creep in along with the attitudes about who is really an artist—I mean, literally which kids in the class, which members of the family—and who isn’t. We’ve all experienced this kind of labeling, right? (I wrote about it here.)
Consider Megan Rapinoe
What I told the older groups, and the whole school community during my brief speech at the unveiling, was a version of this:
When you watch Megan Rapinoe play soccer (if you don’t know who she is, come out from under your rock and google her), with all the joy and skill she displays on the field at the very highest levels of her sport, chances are that you’re not thinking, “I kicked a soccer ball once and it didn’t look like how she does it, so I should give up. I’m just not good at soccer.” No. You understand that she loves it, and that she practices A LOT, and that she’s been practicing for many years. She makes it look easy most of the time, but we also see her struggle now and then. She’s a pro, and a human. She’s dedicated. She inspires young players everywhere to work hard and improve their skills.
In contrast, when someone makes painting a picture look effortless, we assume they were magically born with that talent. We don’t factor in the practice and the dedication. Let me tell you this: I wasn’t born a mosaic artist, or a mural facilitator. Frankly, it’s insulting when people act like I was. It discounts the many many hours of repetition and problem-solving and puzzling and struggles with self-doubt, and especially the bravery that it has taken me to get to this point. Because art, like every single other thing in life, takes practice. Why do we think of it as a “gift” bestowed on some and not others? Is it so we can let ourselves off the hook? Play it safe, rather than explore our potential?
Go Ahead and Argue With Me
I was giving this art-takes-practice-like-everything-else spiel to a parent volunteer who was being hard on himself for not immediately having amazing mosaic skills on his first try, even though he identified as artistic (and obviously perfectionistic). He pushed back, saying that within a classroom, for example, you can see that some kids just have a knack for painting or drawing or whatever it is, while others don’t. True. But to that I say: those kids with “a knack for art” very likely are interested in it, and have therefore sought out art experiences, out of view of the rest of us. I.e. They’ve had more practice, maybe a parent who’s an artist, or more exposure somehow. Ability of any kind rarely just happens. (Read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers if you don’t believe me.)
I’m not saying some folks aren’t more inclined towards art than others. We all have our things. But please stop using “I’m not creative” as an excuse to not try the things you’re interested in. That is, unless you’re determined to stew for decades in your unfulfilled creative yearnings. That makes me sad, but it’s your choice.
And if you’re waiting to be anointed, I hereby anoint you! Go forth and make thine art! :)
The truth is that most of the time, our self-criticism about our artistic abilities reflects a fear of being judged, of not being “the best.” (We were all raised in this capitalist system, after all.) Who the f*ck cares whether you’re the best? The best at what, exactly, and who’s the almighty judge of it, anyway? I’ve led more than 70 successful public art projects up and down the west coast, and this week my proposal for a local mural project was rejected by a panel of judges. Should I quit making murals because I wasn’t chosen by the powers that be? (Spoiler alert: No, I won’t.)
Questions for you: If you’re carrying around creative baggage from earlier in life, can you pinpoint where it came from? Is it still serving you, or are you ready to let it go? What would you try your hand at, if you weren’t so weighed down with self-judgment? What do you really have to lose by trying?
Challenge: Rather than asking, “Am I good at this?” or “Is what I made any good?'“, shift to an experimental mentality instead. I use this guiding question: “What would happen if …?” (What would happen if I used these two colors together? What would happen if I made this image the focus of my collage? What would happen if I gave myself permission to make mistakes and not be perfect? etc.) Switch out of Judge mode into Researcher mode, and I bet you’ll have a lot more fun with your art materials.
Ok, I’ve said my piece. Let me wrap this up. :) I’ll post photos of our mural project in the next blog post, once I’ve had a chance to compile them and digest the experience. In the meantime, help me change the world by contributing your creativity and unique perspectives.
Remember, it’s not a competition. On the contrary, we’re all in this together.
_ _ _ _ _
To this end, Portland-area folks, I’m launching my monthly Second Saturday “Open Make” studio session (get it? like Open Mic but for making?) this Saturday. Our first theme/activity is called Open the Damn Package Challenge. With the support of me and whoever else, you can finally crack the seal on that package of pristine paints or whatever special art materials you’ve been saving for someday. Someday arrives on Saturday! Reply to let me know you’re coming. There’s no charge for this one, although donations are always welcome and accepted.
Open the Damn Package Challenge
Saturday, Feb. 8th, 1:00 - 5:00 pm (or any portion thereof)
at heART SCHOOL (Pam’s studio)
5120 NE 24th Ave, Portland, OR 97211
free/by donation