A blog post from Julianne Hughes, ECC through fifth grade Teaching Artist.

On Thursday, March 26, 2015 from 6 to 8 p.m. we will be hosting the 13th annual TBS student art show. It will be held at the University Campus 1310 University Ave. In Berkeley, CA.  All Students from the Early Childhood campus through eighth grade will have artwork exhibited in a  “salon gallery” style exhibition. The middle school teaching artist Benicia Hill and I, with the help of volunteers, transform the depot building and the art studio into gallery spaces for three days. We see these three days as a celebration of student artwork, art making processes, and the student artists themselves. The title of the art show this year is “Envision” to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed and imagine possible next steps in making art.

The process of Envisioning is one of the eight studio habits of mind that we teach students about  in their art studio experience at TBS. Eight studio habits of mind include: Observe, Reflect, Express, Envision, Develop Craft, Engage & Persist, Stretch & Explore, and Understand the Art World.

When looking at the body of student work you will notice a variety of skill levels within age groups and among each group. Art making is an individual process. Each student comes to creating with gifts and challenges. It is not our intention to have artworks compared to one another, but celebrated in relationship to one another through the growth that one can observe over a life. For instance, you’ll see self-portraits with everything from the apparent scribble to well executed realistic images, and mark making full of wonderful energy and emotion. There is a developmental path, that has been studied, that humans go through to learn to draw. Many of us stop when we realize we can’t draw something realistic. We regularly encourage students look at driving as building a drawing. It is my hope and our goal to offer students A variety of ways of mark making that feel expressive, weather realistic or abstract in their gestures.

Some ways to create meaningful interactions with students around their artwork is to ask open ended questions. Rather than pointed ones such as “What is that?”
You can ask –
How did you make that?
What drawing materials/tools did you need?
How much time did it take?
Tell me what’s going on here?
These are some great ways to start open ended conversations.

Through line I have running through the art studio curriculum this year is “Where do artist get their ideas?”. There are many ways that inspire and spark creativity.