What if your Building Blocks could Talk Back?

Here's an interesting demonstration of tiny computer blocks called "Siftables." Take a look:








Now, this is really intriguing in terms of pulling computers apart and making them more tactile. Things like Google searches, games, and interacting with friends become really interesting in this model.



I don't think, though, that it's well-suited for replacing the tactile things that kids do. In the one part where the kid is making up a story, I'm wanting to reach through the screen and give the poor guy some crayons.



For example, some of my students have already mastered the extensible-drawing thing:





Need another board? Just add one.

The moral: Just because a technology reminds us of an interaction that we learned from well as kids, doesn't mean that it's a substitute. What it does mean is we may be able to take advantage of things like blocks to do things like cross language barriers or teach math concepts. Just don't use technology to remove the thing that gave you the idea in the first place.

How Many Brains Do You Have?

The theory of Multiple Intelligences has been around a long time - basically Dr. Howard Gardner says that there are lots of ways to be smart, not all of them centered on words and numbers, and that these different smartnesses feed each other.

Now, you can argue about whether this is valid or what have you, but I find it very helpful to think of these maybe not so much as intelligences, but modes or orientations. Moods. Different people are in different moods or see the world in different ways. And usually one or two of them tend to be dominant. This dominance can also change over time.

Drawing reveals all of these. Here's the list of intelligences and how they relate:

1. Body/Kinesthetic: Some kids have got to draw standing up. Others just enjoy moving the pencil around. No doubt drawing is movement.
2. Interpersonal: Drawing teaches you to make a part of yourself visible, and to respond to the visible selves of others.
3. Verbal/Linguistic: Drawing is storytelling, as is discussing your drawing.
4. Logical/Math: Drawing requires looking at the physics of the world around you - proportion, dimensions, relationships.
5. Naturalistic: Drawing makes us see our natural environment more clearly.
6. Intrapersonal: You can learn a great deal about what you are thinking by drawing it.
7. Visual/Spatial: Well, this one's pretty obvious. I hope.
8. Musical: Drawing has a rhythm to it, depending on what you are doing. Listen to a room of people drawing. They are making a form of music. Music also enhances drawing for a lot of people.

I think it is unhelpful to think of drawing or art as a subject. It is simply one of many ways to engage all those intelligences. When I teach I watch for the kid who draws standing up, the one who taps her foot in time, the one who wants to talk you through the process, the one who wants to draw mechanical things that could really work, the one who wants to use every color of crayon in order... and the many, many kids who want me to see what they've drawn and respond to it.

"Open a Channel."

You know on Star Trek, when they encounter some unknown thing and they want to communicate with it? The captain says, "Open a channel," and someone pushes some buttons and beeping happens and whoever it is pops up on the screen. Then they talk and discuss destroying each other or who has who prisoner or whatever plot ensues.

When I draw with kids, it feels like opening a channel with them. We have a whole conversation going on by way of what we are putting down on paper, or white boards, or whatever we have. I can learn what's on their minds, what colors they are into, what movies they've seen lately. Sometimes a bunch of them are all drawing the same thing, like Fly Guy or rainbows with hearts around them. They often bond in this way. There's a whole world under there.

So when you draw together, notice that there's that extra channel open and listen to it. People communicate in zillions of ways, and drawing has a quality of directness that is very unique. Different parts of the story come out in different forms. This is why some stories lend themselves to words while others are better as a movie. So, open a channel!

Two Wonderful Quotes about Art and Creativity

Two fabulous quotes, from two different places, about art and creativity. See for yourself, there's much more in this book and blog. I recommend both.

"Moving to Higher Ground - How Jazz Can Change Your Life" (emphasis mine)
a Book by Wynton Marsalis

"I've never understood why many consider creativity to be the mysterious province of some small, specialized group of people... Everywhere we look, we see the result of human creativity. I live in New York now, and it's mind-boggling just to think that every brick on every street, all of the glass, stell, and concrete, all of the art, signage, electrical wiring, plumbing, painting, and so on that makes Manhattan the most amazing metropolis in the world is someone's creation. The creativity of our fellow citizens is all around us - in their dress, language, lifestyle, in so many combinations of things. You don't have to earn your creativity - you're born with it. All you have to do is tend to it and unleash it. Every uman being on earth is given the gift to create, and that creativity manifests itself in trillions of ways. There are no laws or rules. Creativity is unruly. like a dream - you can't control what comes to you. You only control what portion you choose to tell."


Presentation Zen, a blog by Garr Reynolds (emphasis mine)

"You do not need to become a professional musician, but in music and art you learn discipline and commitment and the value of hard, hard work. You learn what the pursuit of excellence is all about, that hard work has a reward, that you have to fail before you can succeed. You learn about self-expression and communication. You learn self-respect and the respect of others. These are not unimportant things, they are vital things. Yes, of course you need math and science and literature — these are essential. But you need music and art to take you to a higher ground, to make you human. Why it is a case of either-or — "academics" or "the arts" — is one of the great mistakes of our time. People like Jose Antonio Abreu and Bill Strickland and Ken Robinson, etc. remind us that this is a false choice."

Why do Kids Love Cartoons?

Take a look at this drawing by a four-year-old... it is so simple -- it's got a boat shape, a single line for the water, sails, and a skull. That's it. Pirate ship.
At the same time, it's got a whole lot of personality.
This drawing is a clue as to why kids like cartoons and comics so much.
I've been wondering this for some time - why do kids gravitate so much toward cartooned or drawn images? My own kids just love animated stories like The Iron Giant. They seem to relate to them much better than a lot of live action, unless the live action has lots of, well, action.
I think there are two things going on here:

1. Kids are in the full-time business of "reading" the world and finding out important stuff from it. They are learning how people act, what things sound like, causes and effects... it's a complicated world out there. Sometimes all that information can be overwhelming. Everybody's seen a cranky, over-stimulated kid. Not pretty.
Cartoons tell a story by the simplest means possible. There is no extraneous information. So kids don't have to filter what they see. They don't have to figure out what to pay attention to. This gives their brain filters a rest, and lets them just enjoy. This has got to be awfully appealing.

2. The vast majority of the time, animated or cartoon images are kid-friendly. This means it's easy for a kid to determine what shows to watch. Again, less information to filter. Now Adult Swim on CN is a big exception, and I've had my kids object when I've quickly turned off animated stuff that they weren't intended to see (oops). They don't quite understand that one, because to them cartoons are kid things. Their things. And that's true, a lot of the time.

So in short, cartoons and comics are easy on the kid brain. Nothing but story. What a great thing.

Make a Home for the Inspiration Fairy

Whenever I am in a museum gift shop, I find there are lots of art books for kids. Some are about artists, some are about the exhibits - and quite a few are big lists of art projects. They list materials you need, and generally show some work of art created for the photograph that looks really great and really perfect.

Here's something else to try: Set up an art Studio, rather than an art Project. This way the Inspiration Fairy has somewhere to land when she decides to visit you.

When you set up a Studio, you leave the end result open, and you create a space where it's safe to try things. You keep the materials organized so that they can be found and so that they last a long time. And, a Studio is available any time an idea strikes.

My classes are like a Studio. I like to get everyone drawing right away, then see what is on their mind. I don't talk about an end result too much. You never know what might happen - mini-comics, drawings on a white board, origami, who knows. We use different materials rather than setting up different projects.

Now, often a student has an idea in mind, and it's my job to offer ways of making that idea come to life. And, sometimes we will have a theme, such as superheroes and sidekicks or magic or the zoo. Sometimes I'm working with a teacher who is integrating art into a bigger curriculum.

But by thinking of art in terms of a Studio rather than a Project, you make art part of life rather than something that has to be finished or done a certain way.

You don't need much, some combination of these things is great:

- Paper, white and colored, scrap, recycling, notepads, what have you

- Pencils, erasers, and a good sharpeneer

- Chalk or pastels

- Scissors

- Glue sticks

- Old magazines to cut up (look through these if they are not for kids, they have a tendency to find only the underwear and alcohol ads)

- (Washable) markers

- Crayons

- Clay

- White board and dry erase markers

- Anything else you think is cool or you find around - white glue, glitter, extra buttons, etc. Newspapers can be coloring books. Everything is fair game.

Give these things a permanent home, in a cupboard or box or basket. Then when Studio time is over, all the materials get put away properly. Respect for the materials is really important. Then whenever inspiration strikes, there you go.

Yay for the Norton Simon Museum!

I've just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where I got to go check out the Norton Simon Museum. You know, the one all the floats go by during the Rose Parade.

Well, wow. It is spectacular. If you're near there, go.

The building itself is a wonderful place to look at art. There's plenty of room, and you can see from one gallery into the next. The sculpture garden outside is fabulous. And, this is just a tremendous art collection.

The whole lower level is Asian art, with huge glass windows lighting the statues and carvings.

Norton Simon was a super-successful businessman, and clearly a guy with a great eye for collecting works of art. He paid particular attention to Degas and to Van Gogh, so the pieces by those two are really spectacular.

And, the explanations posted with the pieces are really really good. I don't know if it's because this is one person's collection and so the stories of the pieces are better known, but many paintings and sculptures had really complete descriptions including things like where the artist was living at the time a piece was made, what was going on historically, how groups of artists were influencing each other, how artists were being influenced by technology and geometry and other things, and a lot of other great information. Sometimes the labels can be really disappointing - "Attributed to such and such artist, from between this year and this year..." - but not here. They were terrific.

So, check it out. They also have pretty good pizza in the cafe.

Screeeech! Starting in the Middle of the Freeway

If you were to try and teach a kid to drive, you would not take them out on the freeway on the first try and then berate them for causing an accident. That's dumb.

But when we teach art, we often have some project in mind - we know what it's supposed to look like, and the purpose of the project is to help everyone "successfully" get a result. This is like dropping into the middle of the freeway.

Now, I am not against project-based art. I absolutely think we should help kids feel successful and like they are in control of the various materials. It feels good to make something that looks good.

Sometimes, though, the project thing goes to far toward creating a wall of art that all looks the same, because the teacher wanted to be "successful" at "getting results" from the students.

The piece that is missing is: The process of finding out what your personality looks like when you put it down on paper. Learning to communicate in your own way visually is like opening up a new channel to the world. Sometimes when there is too much "personality" in an art project, a child can feel like his or her work came out "wrong." That's just not true!

Did you know that, when a roomful of people makes paintings of one model, each painting comes out looking a little like the artist who made it. Weird, huh? It goes to show you how much of ourselves we put into art.

And, it's not just putting your personality out there - it is having someone see it, and react to it. That's a risk, making yourself visible like that. Kids need to feel that it is okay to communicate by drawing, that what they put down is cool because they did it, not because it fits a project.

So next time you draw, by yourself or with a kid or with friends, don't feel like you have to have a project in mind. Maybe try a new material, but let the work be open-ended. It's okay. And when you look at a drawing, ask questions about it and talk about what you see. Help make the connection between the inner and outer worlds of drawing.

When kids do try a project, they should put their own personality on it have this be a good thing, not a situation where the art didn't come out the way it was "supposed" to. We've got enough of that sort of thing with testing.

Just Look at This Art!

Okay, I know these are small, and some are out of focus, but that doesn't detract from the overall fabulousness of this artwork. My cell phone is absolutely filled with this stuff because I love it all so much. The kids will draw and then hold it up and say, "Betsy, take a picture of this!!"


I mean, how can you not love this stuff. Each one has someone's personality all over it.



Sometimes all the kids get into drawing a particular character in a particular way, like big crossed eyes.




Sometimes, it's all about which pen has the most ink in it. We have one black pen that works really well - currently.

I love the way kids draw the body because it shows so much about how they think about bodies and how they fit together.

Like, using the arms and legs to show a big gesture rather than worrying about how many fingers it's supposed to have.

This is great stuff.

I hope you can see what I see - personalities bursting out all over everything. Each one is made differently. They even hold the pen differently. The marks are unique. Where they put things is unique.

When I draw with kids it's like opening up a channel of communication with them.

This is what's missing for me in art "projects." While it's great to help kids be successful with various materials and to build up their confidence, I think you've got to go beyond that to show kids how great it is to show their personalities in this way, and to make it okay for them to do that. We are really into right and wrong in our schools. We need to be sure that we let kids show who they are and that we really see what they show us.

You know something about each of these artists now.

Hangin' with TED

This week lots of interesting people are giving talks about Big Subjects at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). Bill Gates apparently let loose a swarm of mosquitoes to make a point about malaria (they weren't carrying the disease). Anyway, I'd be willing to bet top dollar that every single person presenting at this conference had inspiration to be creative early in their life. They looked at things differently. They tried things.

They may not have done too well on standardized tests. I know Mr. Gates didn't focus on that stuff too much.

This is what I'm saying when I talk about how important it is to let your brain out to run around, with a pencil, or paints, or clay, or a piano (keep the clay away from the piano) or whatever. New ideas come from people willing to try things and to step out of the box. Art teaches you to do this.

So check out TED (lots of cool talks at TED.com) - I feature them here every so often. But browse around and see if anything hits you. Then maybe draw something about it.

George Lucas and Communicating

Interesting clip here, where Mr. Lucas discusses the idea of broadening our learning of grammar and language to be something called "communication."




While I agree with most of what he is saying, he talks about the need to learn as opposed to the need to be heard. I would turn this around a bit. I think that before anyone "learns" anything "correct" about communicating with various media, there is a core need there to be seen and heard and it exists from the very beginning. And, creating an environment where it is safe to be seen and heard, and where your ideas are valid because they come from you and contain truth, is really important to fostering creative thinking and problem solving.

This is because creating is a risk. Whenever you put something out there, you make visible some part of yourself. So to practice that and be good at it, you need a safe place. Just like you need a proper tennis court or flat wall to learn to hit the ball correctly. You don't learn tennis in the middle of a busy street, you find a safe and proper place to take the risk of trying. And being successful or failing or just thinking, "I think I'll do that differently next time."

Respect the Art Supplies.

Way back when, painters made their own paints out of pigments and heavy metals and all sorts of things that weren't really very good for you. Titanium White, for example.

But they took care of those paints, because they didn't have money (usually) and the pigments were expensive.

In this day of Wal-Mart and endless aisles of so-called "creative" products for kids, with every size and shape of pen and crayon and special chalk for sidewalks (wait, can't I use regular chalk on the sidewalk?) and nifty markers that change colors and all of it, it's easy to end up with a mound of stuff that looks cool in the package but not so great in a mound.

Don't get me wrong, I love all that stuff. Love it. Love the bags of googly eyes, and the pipe cleaners, and lots of glue. Oh, and clay, too. And shiny things!

Anyway, every artist (and that means you) needs to practice respecting the art supplies. This means keeping them in order, not piling them all into one plastic container. Being gentle with them, so that erasers stay on and leads don't get snapped and pen caps don't end up under the couch.

Why? Because respect for your tools makes you better at what you do. A mechanic respects the tools. A musician respects the instrument. A photographer respects the camera.

This is no different for the artist, however easy it is to get pencils and pens and erasers all over the place. This does not make you expressive or eccentric or anything. It just makes it harder to get the picture you want because you are not in control of your materials.

Pick up any fabulously-illustrated children's picture book and ask yourself if the illustrator had to dig around to find a half-chewed crummy pencil to make those pictures. Not.

So, respect the materials.