thank heavens, it's another post, that's what it is.
i thought that philosophy might just stay up at the top of the screen forever-- sky and carlos had finally solved all mysteries, and there was nothing left to debate, or even think about.
but it's not the case, it seems.
this pic, i feel, is a rubbing, perhaps--the lines have that sort of look. and then it was added to with more crayon? is it kids art, or has macro gone all neo-primitive/ art brut on us?
It seems all wolfboy's art-writing has paid off. This is one of my student's works after I showed him how to peel a crayon and turn it on it's side (kinda like a rubbing since you can see a paper cut out of a person from previous page). I also like the fact that you left room for the possibility that it wasn't a kid's but an adult (namely me - I'm flattered). I guess some post-fine-art-grads wouldn't dig being compared to kid art, but I can't get over how cool some of their work is. I am going to make a new blog with their art on it.
We spend our lifetimes trying to grasp a fraction of the creativity we held as children. We are all born artists. Life`s distractions determine the final product of ourselves. Nobody is ever satisfied with the results.
This must be a close-up of one of those cave paintings in Lascoux, France.
Dru just started some crayon work(or play?). It didn't take him long to move onto the floor as his canvas. Ater he's done drawing he likes to crumple, fold and tear his piece. I'll post some soon.
In other news, I took Dru to the Through the Eyes of a Child Exhibit. What a vibrant exhibition! It was electric with it's use of color. His eyes were very wide-open.
In another gallery I saw a Kurelek that was very realistic. When I think of his work I think of art naive, so this was startling for me.
Hey I took Olivia to that a few weeks ago. She (and I) were wide eyed and just drank in the colour. She particulary liked the ceramics and the Pompei corner with the fossils and frescoes.
Bodies in a kids-art show?! I was quite surprised a couple years back when i saw it and there was an animation bit to a tom waits song. How many kids know tom waits? I think there is a pretty strong adult influence (silly grown ups, when will they learn they can't compare to a childs creativity).
oops, are you not supposed to let three year olds listen to tom waits?
Yeah, I guess the bodies were a little disturbing, but the story behind them is cool, little unexplained underground hollows all over the place and then some archeologist has a brainstorm to fill them with plaster of paris, and presto, insta corpses.
Anyhow, Olivia kinda thought they were neat...maybe we're sort of disturbed? :)
Through the Eyes of a Child, by various artists Winnipeg Art Gallery, 300 Memorial Blvd. To May 20
What is it about art by kids that's so special that even grown-up, professional artists, try so often to imitate it, or that even the least arty among us will proudly put their children's drawings up on the fridge? The Winnipeg Art Gallery, a space normally reserved for the art world's elite, is hoping to answer some of these questions, devoting the next two months to some 800 youngsters, ranging in age from five to 17, who have brightened the gallery's studio programs over the last year. The product of their work includes everything from sculpture to drawing, self-portraits in paint and photography, video art and collage, and it contains all of the energy and fun you'd expect when you give a bunch of kids some paint and paper and then let them go. Michael Boss, the long-time head of the studio programs at the WAG, says: "As we get older, we get a little more set in our ways and afraid of failure, so we're less willing to try new things--but you see with these kids, they're willing to be free and spontaneous." The results, Boss says, speak for themselves: "When they walk in here and see the show, people smile. They just can't help it." Susanna Portnoy, who has taught classes at the WAG for 13 years, sums up, with a single word, most poeple's reaction on seeing this exhibit: "Wow." The reaction to the typical adult show, of course, is closer to the feeling most people have on entering a place of worship--an awed respect for something bigger and more important than them. And yet with this exhibit, the reaction is almost exactly the opposite. You feel silly. You want to shout and do push-ups. You wish you had a skateboard. Portnoy says. "The difference between kids and adults (in art) is freedom. Adults have learned over the years to rein that in." In the studios and classrooms of the WAG, Portnoy says that the teachers often have a harder time than the kids in just letting go, and allowing creativity to bloom. "When the kids aren't doing it as I suggested, I often have to stop myself from interfering... and then I can learn from them." Portnoy has helped to run the visual side of Quantum program, a co-ordinated effort through the Winnipeg School Division, the WAG, Prairie Theatre Exchange, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. In this program, promising youngsters are taken out of school for two hours at a time, twice a week, and learn the art form of their choice directly from the pros. The students in her class created a Pompeii-themed mini-exhibit, commemorating the Roman city that was buried under a volcano in 79 A.D. Like the rest of the exhibit, it shows a kids-eye view of the world, one that is able to take in something as vast as the tragedy of Pompeii, and yet still treat it with an unmistakably child-like touch. 11-year old Rachel Williams of Luxton School ("I'll be 12 in a month", she was careful to remind me), was part of the Quantum program. She notes that the portraits in the Pompeii exhibit are not what they seem to be at first. "We did self-portraits," she says, "but we Romanised them a little." Williams says that the program, and this exhibit, have helped her understand just how much she could do when given the chance. "People who think they can't do art should give it a second shot," the young artist says. "At first, I didn't think I could do it either... but now I know that I can." Portnoy, her instructor in the Quantum program, puts it this way: "To see their art framed and matted, up on the wall in a real gallery, and see people looking at it and talking about it, it makes them feel good about themselves." "It makes them feel like they can do anything." So if there is something about art by kids that strikes such a chord, maybe it's just that--it gives us all hope, makes us feel a bit giddy again, and suggests the unlimited possibilities within every one of us.
A Love for Art was a collaborative blog for visual artists, musicians, writers, and social scientists. This blog has evolved into a new blog called BETA, go check it out!
15 comments:
What is it?
thank heavens, it's another post, that's what it is.
i thought that philosophy might just stay up at the top of the screen forever-- sky and carlos had finally solved all mysteries, and there was nothing left to debate, or even think about.
but it's not the case, it seems.
this pic, i feel, is a rubbing, perhaps--the lines have that sort of look. and then it was added to with more crayon? is it kids art, or has macro gone all neo-primitive/ art brut on us?
either way, it'd durned interesting.
It seems all wolfboy's art-writing has paid off. This is one of my student's works after I showed him how to peel a crayon and turn it on it's side (kinda like a rubbing since you can see a paper cut out of a person from previous page). I also like the fact that you left room for the possibility that it wasn't a kid's but an adult (namely me - I'm flattered). I guess some post-fine-art-grads wouldn't dig being compared to kid art, but I can't get over how cool some of their work is. I am going to make a new blog with their art on it.
We spend our lifetimes trying to grasp a fraction of the creativity we held as children.
We are all born artists. Life`s distractions determine the final product of ourselves. Nobody is ever satisfied with the results.
I love this piece (and the method).
Gorgeous.
I agree that we are all born artists, but I say untangle from life's distractions and reclaim art. (although that is easier said than done I guess).
I resent your implication that I have solved everything!!! ;)
I am actually trying to unsolve everything...
once everything is unsolved, then all things will appear as they truly are, which is infinite.
i feel like, via this blog, and other art-y stuff we do, we're all seeking to untangle a bit from the distractions.
it's true, too, that no one is ever satisfied with the results.
that's why we gotta keep giv'n 'er.
Giv'n'er: a classic Canadian (prairie/Winnipeg?) linguistic form. Definition: ????
This must be a close-up of one of those cave paintings in Lascoux, France.
Dru just started some crayon work(or play?). It didn't take him long to move onto the floor as his canvas. Ater he's done drawing he likes to crumple, fold and tear his piece. I'll post some soon.
In other news, I took Dru to the Through the Eyes of a Child Exhibit. What a vibrant exhibition! It was electric with it's use of color. His eyes were very wide-open.
In another gallery I saw a Kurelek that was very realistic. When I think of his work I think of art naive, so this was startling for me.
Hey I took Olivia to that a few weeks ago. She (and I) were wide eyed and just drank in the colour.
She particulary liked the ceramics and the Pompei corner with the fossils and frescoes.
Oh, that was Pompeii! I found those bodies a little disturbing.
Bodies in a kids-art show?! I was quite surprised a couple years back when i saw it and there was an animation bit to a tom waits song. How many kids know tom waits? I think there is a pretty strong adult influence (silly grown ups, when will they learn they can't compare to a childs creativity).
oops, are you not supposed to let three year olds listen to tom waits?
Yeah, I guess the bodies were a little disturbing, but the story behind them is cool, little unexplained underground hollows all over the place and then some archeologist has a brainstorm to fill them with plaster of paris, and presto, insta corpses.
Anyhow, Olivia kinda thought they were neat...maybe we're sort of disturbed?
:)
Free Press, March 22/07
Through the Eyes of a Child, by various artists
Winnipeg Art Gallery, 300 Memorial Blvd.
To May 20
What is it about art by kids that's so special that even grown-up, professional artists, try so often to imitate it, or that even the least arty among us will proudly put their children's drawings up on the fridge?
The Winnipeg Art Gallery, a space normally reserved for the art world's elite, is hoping to answer some of these questions, devoting the next two months to some 800 youngsters, ranging in age from five to 17, who have brightened the gallery's studio programs over the last year.
The product of their work includes everything from sculpture to drawing, self-portraits in paint and photography, video art and collage, and it contains all of the energy and fun you'd expect when you give a bunch of kids some paint and paper and then let them go.
Michael Boss, the long-time head of the studio programs at the WAG, says: "As we get older, we get a little more set in our ways and afraid of failure, so we're less willing to try new things--but you see with these kids, they're willing to be free and spontaneous."
The results, Boss says, speak for themselves: "When they walk in here and see the show, people smile. They just can't help it."
Susanna Portnoy, who has taught classes at the WAG for 13 years, sums up, with a single word, most poeple's reaction on seeing this exhibit: "Wow."
The reaction to the typical adult show, of course, is closer to the feeling most people have on entering a place of worship--an awed respect for something bigger and more important than them.
And yet with this exhibit, the reaction is almost exactly the opposite. You feel silly. You want to shout and do push-ups. You wish you had a skateboard.
Portnoy says. "The difference between kids and adults (in art) is freedom. Adults have learned over the years to rein that in."
In the studios and classrooms of the WAG, Portnoy says that the teachers often have a harder time than the kids in just letting go, and allowing creativity to bloom. "When the kids aren't doing it as I suggested, I often have to stop myself from interfering... and then I can learn from them."
Portnoy has helped to run the visual side of Quantum program, a co-ordinated effort through the Winnipeg School Division, the WAG, Prairie Theatre Exchange, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. In this program, promising youngsters are taken out of school for two hours at a time, twice a week, and learn the art form of their choice directly from the pros.
The students in her class created a Pompeii-themed mini-exhibit, commemorating the Roman city that was buried under a volcano in 79 A.D.
Like the rest of the exhibit, it shows a kids-eye view of the world, one that is able to take in something as vast as the tragedy of Pompeii, and yet still treat it with an unmistakably child-like touch.
11-year old Rachel Williams of Luxton School ("I'll be 12 in a month", she was careful to remind me), was part of the Quantum program. She notes that the portraits in the Pompeii exhibit are not what they seem to be at first. "We did self-portraits," she says, "but we Romanised them a little."
Williams says that the program, and this exhibit, have helped her understand just how much she could do when given the chance.
"People who think they can't do art should give it a second shot," the young artist says. "At first, I didn't think I could do it either... but now I know that I can."
Portnoy, her instructor in the Quantum program, puts it this way: "To see their art framed and matted, up on the wall in a real gallery, and see people looking at it and talking about it, it makes them feel good about themselves."
"It makes them feel like they can do anything."
So if there is something about art by kids that strikes such a chord, maybe it's just that--it gives us all hope, makes us feel a bit giddy again, and suggests the unlimited possibilities within every one of us.
the end...
Making art and making hope. awesome.
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