Outside ofConsciousness.

Creativity curriculumcreates places for

free investigation. ByBridget Reinhard in

Outsider: AlternativeMedia group, Spiral

Workshop 2009.

Playing,Creativity,Possibility

BY OLIVIA GUDE

Trust in the inexhaustible character of the murmur.-Andre Breton, Manifeste du Surrealisme, 1926

W hy is it sometimes so difficult for teachers to createconditions that support the emergence of creativebehavior and surprising images? Although virtu­

ally all contemporary art teachers list "enhancing creativity"as a key desired outcome of their programs, analysis of lessonplans used in schools suggests that in practice very little curric­ulum is specifically geared to developing creative abilities. Wemust question the assumption that any art project will cultivatecreative behaviors and then develop projects whose methodssupport core objectives for quality creativity curriculumsuch as stimulating free ideation, encouraging experimentalapproaches to making, and supporting students in identifyingand manifesting deeply felt idiosyncratic experiences.

March 2010/ ART EDUCATION 31

Act 1: Anxiety"] don't know what to do," Jane responds when told to get down to work. "It's easy,"

the teacher says for the 27th time today. "lust think of things that don't go together

and put them in your painting." The student whines, "] can't think ofanything." The

frustrated (and exhausted) teacher offers a plethora ofsuggestions that are each met

with a disconsolate sigh.

Several teenagers and a teacher are gathered around a table looking at a multi­

branched inkblot on a dampened piece ofpaper. "What do you see?" asks the teacher.

"] don't see nothing in that mess," a young gentleman snappily responds. The others

laugh and concur, "Yeah, that ain't nothing." A more subdued young man, too polite

to mock the teacher, none the less shakes his head in disbelief and softly murmurs,

"] don't know what you want me to see..."

"Let your mind flow, just stare at the image," the teacher prompts. "Now] see a

large lizard carrying a tulip in his mouth." The boys laugh and assert that the teacher

is "just plain crazy."!

In my first draft of the above paragraph, Idescribed the student aslistless-"showingor having no interest in anything, spirit-less" (Oxford English Dictionary, 1971). AsI re-read my description, I realized that Istrongly identified with the experience of theoverworked, discouraged teacher and notwith the internal experience of the student.The student is not lazy or spiritless, but thestudent is dispirited, without the spirit offearless exploration needed to make art.

Though she has been told that there isnot one right answer to an art project, thestudent doesn't know how to judge what kindof solution will be acceptable. She doesn'teven consider that the final product might bepersonally meaningful because this has notbeen her experience of schoolwork in art orin other classes. She doesn't understand thepurpose of making such a project and yet shewill be judged on how well she completes it.

Act 2: Resistance

Why do students sometimes prefer almostany activity-staring out the window,chatting, throwing small balls of clay,painting fingernails, doing homework-toartmaking? Why do some students activelyresist opportunities for constructive creativeplay?

To engage in making art, one must beginby surrendering to the process of making.Whether playing with colors, inventing dancesteps, or jotting down poetry on paper, theartist must paradoxically "lighten up" and"get serious" at the same time. An artist mustmake a commitment to actively and seriously

32 ART EDUCATION / March 2010

The teacher is dispirited too. She longs tobe the sort of teacher who presides over aclassroom of excited and engaged students.She wants to live up to her memories ofteachers who inspired her-or she wants tobe more supportive than the boring, spirit­destroying art teachers she occasionallyencountered. This teacher is frustrated anddisappointed-when she was a student andhad a chance at this sort of artistic freedomshe was exhilarated. The teacher begins toconcentrate on the few students who arehaving a great time and tries not to think toomuch about those who are dutifully daubingpaint on the offhandedly-sketched ideas theteacher has eked out for each of them. Bothteacher and student are feeling anxiety­uneasiness, apprehension, psychic tension.

A few weeks later, the teacher surveys thefew fabulous-looking, realistically renderedDaliesque paintings and the many laconically

engaging the materials and forms at handwhile simultaneously remaining loose andexperimental.

It can be difficult to step back and considerthe many sources of students' resistances.In the example above, the young men weregood-naturedly united in their unwillingnessto engage in creative play, but each of theirreasons was quite different. The young manwho wants to see what the teacher wants himto see is anxious to be perceived as good.For him being good means not questioningauthority, staying within perceived bound­aries of appropriate thought and action.

finished works that lack visual excitementor psychological depth. It suddenly occursto the teacher that there is an uncannysimilarity between the descriptions of these"not so good" paintings and how she hascome to view many of the "not so good"students. The very young people whosepassionate emotions and intense energy firstdrew her to the field of teaching now seem tolack depth and seem not at all excited aboutmaking meaning in their lives. The teachersadly concludes that given such attitudesin "today's youth" she can't be the inspiringteacher she had hoped to be.

Yet, a teacher's complaining about thestudents' characteristics is like a chemistcomplaining about the physical propertiesof elements. The students are who they arenow. How do we as teachers meet students intheir present psychological state and engagethem in transformative experiences? Howcan a busy public school teacher respond toindividual needs for support in developingdeeply personal creative behaviors within acollective, common curriculum?

Surrender to an internally generated creativeself may mean that he finds himself outside ofthe comforting constraints of conformity.

Other students may have different reasonsfor resisting creative engagement. Onestudent may be reluctant to jeopardize hisstatus as a good realist artist by making"childish-looking" art; another student, withhip hop-inspired awareness of the politicalimplications of art and music may considerthe activities in this art class to be irrelevantto the real issues of his community. Otherstudents may have been shamed by parentsor peers for being too dreamy, not focusedenough on the practical aspects of survivingin a tough neighborhood or of growing upand making a living.

A teacher's awareness of why studentsmight feel discomfort in engaging in artisticprocesses can be a powerful tool for allayinghidden anxieties and for then using dialogueto collaboratively construct a safe space forincipient creative urges to be nurtured, ratherthan being denied and smothered.

Fumage. High school studentslooked for images on papers thathad been smoked with a candle,a Surrealist technique known asfumage. Quality creativityenhancing projects allow formany different kinds of contentand styles to emerge. Bad &Beautiful Painting group, SpiralWorkshop 2004.

Act Three: Cultivating CreativityA co-teacher, sensing group resistance building against the planned project, wanders

over, "Gh, you see a lizard? Yes, I guess I see that, but what I really see is this mountain

with a house and a man climbing .... I think he's carrying something heavy .. ..." The

teachers exchange more comments about what they are seeing-enjoying each other's

increasingly detailed and outlandish observations.

An attractive girl offers her opinion. Now a few of the boys get interested, "You see

that?" the tallest boy asks. "Gh, yeah, I see that too and a warrior..." says a formerly

resistant young man. He's met with good-natured derision from friends, but also with

requests to point out the ninja and his accompanyingflame-spouting panther.

Soon most of the students are offering descriptions ofwhat they each see in the

inkblot-sometimes building on each other's observations, sometimes taking the

conversation in a new direction. Now everyone in the classroom is getting interested­

ifeven these "bad boys" are excited about this new, weird game, maybe there is

something to it after all.

Footprint Traces. Beforeclass, teachers sprinkledground up colored chalk inthe doorway and coveredthe classroom floor withblack construction paper.Students were asked to lookunder their feet, pick up apaper, and make an artworkon the footprints-recordedevidence of their entry into a"creative space:' Time Bombgroup, Spiral Workshop2004.

Teachers can readily list many conditionsthat inhibit the development of creativity instudents-self-consciousness in front ofpeers, over-scheduling that doesn't leave timefor creative daydreaming, hours spentimmersed in passively watching TV oractively playing video games, schools thatfocus on getting the one right answer, and asociety that judges success on standardizedtest scores and the size of bank accounts. Arteducators assume that at least a partialcorrective to these creativity-inhibitingconditions can be readily found in thecurriculum of an average art classroom. Isthis actually the case? Do attempts toarticulate the components of quality arteducation often fail to identify and supportwell-documented conditions that fostercreative behavior?

Today's content standards for artseducation reinforce a tendency to overlookactual processes associated with creativebehavior. These standards are inventories ofcontent (such as media and formalistvocabulary) and sometimes contain mecha­nisms of instrumental creativity (i.e. methodsand activities for finding solutions toproblems posed by someone else). Thestandards do not represent the deep experi­ences of immersion, wonder, and notknowing that are described by creativeindividuals. Lists of standards, with their

March 2010/ ART EDUCATION 33

Inkblot Portraits by Chicagoyouth artists. String wet with ink

was placed on paper and thepaper was then folded in half

producing Rorschach-like blots.It is probably biologically codedthat humans are inclined to see

living creatures in bi-Iaterallysymmetrical forms. The teens

were amazed at the wide varietyof portraits generated by a

similar beginning. Seeing theirown startling multiplicity of

imagination cultivates students'awe and respect for each other's

creative capacity. Portrait of aYoung Artist group, Spiral

Workshop 2001.

Principles ofPossibility

Playing

Forming Self

InvestigatingCommunity Themes

Encountering Difference

Attentive living

Empowered Experiencing

Empowered Making

Deconstructing Culture

ReconstructingSocial Spaces

Not Knowing

34 ART EDUCATION / March 2010

emphasis on conscious intentionality, are atodds with the characteristics of actual qualityartworks, which embody a holisticcomplexity that is not reducible to the sum ofthe parts (During, 2005; Garoian, 1999; Kant,1790/1977)2 Thus, standards as currentlywritten do little to foster consideration of thesorts of experiences that can empowerstudents to be aware of and act on internalknowing and experiencing.

In his classic book, On Becoming a Person,Carl Rogers (1961) summarized circum­stances that promote personal growth andself-actualization. Rogers described twomajor conditions that foster creativity­psychological safety and psychologicalfreedom. He identifies three components thatcultivate psychological safety: (1) "Acceptingthe individual as of unconditional worth;"(2) "Providing a climate in which externalevaluation is absent;" and (3) "Understandingempathically" (pp. 357-358). Psychologicalfreedom is rooted in trusti ng that freedom ofexpression will result in thoughtfuloutcomes, a climate in which positive peopletake seriously the responsibility for what theysay and make.

I believe that most art teachers sincerelywant to provide a safe place that promotesfree artistic exploration. However, there is ageneral misapprehension that a teacher's wishto create a safe, creative psychological spacewill necessarily generate this experience forstudents. Conditions of psychological safetyand freedom that make creativity possible areproduced, not merely by the teacher's wishes,but rather by how his or her attitudemanifests itself in the range of choices thataffect course content, work styles, classdiscussions, peer interactions, opportunitiesfor playful engagement with materials andideas, and assessment or the lack thereof.

By carefully re-considering values,priorities, curriculum, and daily practices, itis possible to change the climate of theclassroom. Rogers' description of thepsychological safety that allows creativity toemerge emphasizes creating a climate inwhich the individual's experience is valuedand understood, a climate in which theindividual is not judged for how well he/shemeets a pre-determined model of process orproduct.

Accessing the Creativity ofthe Unconscious Mind

As we develop the curriculum content forSpiral Workshop, the University of Universityof Illinois at Chicago Saturday art programfor teens, we keep in mind the Principles ofPossibility, a list that articulates importantcomponents of a comprehensive art educa­tion experience-Playing, Forming Self,Investigating Community Themes,Encountering Difference, Attentive Living,Empowered Experiencing, EmpoweredMaking, Deconstructing Culture,Reconstructing Social Spaces, Not Knowing(Gude, 2007). Playing, a necessary compo­nent of any creative process, is the first (andfoundational) principle of the possibilitiesthat can emerge from a quality art curric­ulum. Though Spiral curriculum is structuredto investigate complex themes3 and tointroduce students to sophisticated contem­porary art practices, we begin our work withan affirmation of the creative capacity of eachparticipant.

The first day in every Spiral Workshopgroup is designated as a Surrealist Play Day, aday of projects designed to extend students'capacities for focused and playful engage­ment. These introductory activities are basedon the many games and collaborativeactivities utilized by the original Surrealistartists and poets to open themselves to new

avenues of thinking and making (Breton,1934/1997; Brotchie, 1995; Nadeau,1944/1989). These activities can be thought ofas remedial education for all whose creativecapacities have been damaged by too muchtime in dehumanizing and overly regimentededucational systems.

Surrealist artists sought to catch theunconscious mind unawares and capture theimages of the unfettered imagination. As anyworking artist knows, it is not always easy tosummon up a creative spirit on demand.Thus, simply telling students that this is their"creative time" does not necessarily result infocused, creative activity.

Creativity curriculum at Spiral continues toevolve, but there are some activities that havebecome regular favorites. The most versatileexercise is the activity oflooking for imagesin the random stimuli of blots and stains, aprocess described by Max Ernst as "seeinginto" (Bradley, 1997, p. 23): Andre Breton(1997) explained, "What fascinated us was thepossibility ... of escaping the constraints thatweigh on supervised thoughts" (p. 62).

This activity cultivates an ability toconsciously alter one's perception in order toaccess other ways of seeing and knowing. Itallows a creative maker to foster awareness ofthe intertwining of the outer world and innerconsciousness.

Exquisite Characters.Fourth-grade students ofMedgar Evers ElementarySchool played the classicExquisite Corpsecollaborative drawing game.Because so many publicschool students had beenkilled in Chicago that year,we decided to change thename of the project toExquisite Characters. 2002.

Surrealist Character Collages in which chanceplays a role in image choice lead to more finishedworks in which oil pastel is layered onto and thenscraped off the shiny surface of a magazinecollage. ByTia Briticevich in the Imprinted group,Spiral Workshop 2001.

March 2010/ ART EDUCATION 35

Ghost of My Friend, a Surrealist Game inwhich each youth artist wrote his or hername with wet ink. The blot resulting fromfolding the paper became the basis forcreating a spontaneously generatedalter-ego character. By Sylwia Stronowicz inthe Subversive Identity, Breaking CultureCodes group, Spiral Workshop 200S.

Spiral Workshop teachers have experi­mented with many different materials tocreate the smears and smudges that form thebasis of our "Seeing Into" investigations­including coffee, bleach, and smoke. "SeeingInto" can be used to encourage conceptual aswell as visual play. Considering a red stain ona paper. the students discuss images that eachsees. They are then told that the stain isactually blood (or red earth or raspberryjuice) and then discuss whether thisknowledge suggests different associations.Students thus also learn to think inmetaphor, to play with a range of signifiersand associations.

Another favorite Spiral Workshop playactivity is collaboratively making visual andverbal Exqui ite Corpses projects. WritingPoems of Opposites and writing questionsfor unseen answers are other Surrealist wordgames that encourage students to be playfulin generating texts and images andthoughtful in considering the unexpectedoutcomes of their own creative process(Brotchie, 1995; adeau, 1944/1989). Fromsuch activities, students learn to be willing to"jump right in" to creative experimentationand then to slow down and consider whathas been made. Students learn that in mostcreative work a large percentage of initialideas and images are discarded as the makersearches for the spark that will make asustained artistic investigation worthwhile.

Internalizing Understandingof the Creative Process

As well as giving students opportunities toengage in creative play-both playful makingand playful interpretation-it is important toencourage their capacities to make nuancedobservations of inner experiences as theyengage in creative work. Carl Rogersdescribed three characteristics of the creativeexperience (1961). He labels the initialcharacteristic "Eureka!" the feeling that thisis really it.

Surprisingly, a second characteristic thatoften accompanies the surprise and pleasureof the Eureka experience of recognition andacceptance is the experience of "the anxietyof separateness." (Rogers, 1961, p. 356).Anxiety is a necessary component of a trulycreative experience. How do we as teachersrecognize and support our students as theystruggle with the anxiety of being deeplyengaged with a creative pursuit that isbecoming increasingly personal andencompassing? As fellow travelers in thecreative process we must acknowledge thedilemma, the potential for suffering, andprovide a calm witnessing and emotionalacceptance that allows students to managetheir anxieties and move forward in theprocess. Discussing and sharing theseto-be-expected emotional consequences ofcreative activity prepares students to acceptthe complexity of emerging feelings withinthe self and as manifested by other membersof their creative community.

A final quality suggested by Rogers is thatcreative experience results in the "wish tocommunicate" (1961, p. 356). How canteachers meet this desire for meaningfulinterpersonal communication? How can were-think closure activities so that they are notfocused on critique or valuation by anauthority, but on sharing among peers?6

Considerations forCreating Creative People

Often art educators attempt to sell theimportance of art education by emphasizingits role in developing the creative capacitiesof individuals. Creativity is conceived of aspertaining, not merely to the domain ofmaking art, but also to living a constructive,meaningful life.

Rogers described three characteristics ofconstructively creative people (1961). It'simportant for the field of art education todevelop goals, specific objectives, andcurricula that foster these core characteris­tics: (1) the ability to play, (2) openness toexperience, and (3) an inner locus ofevaluation. Although it may seem counterin­tuitive, a creativity curriculum must bestructured to teach methods and practices ofplaying with elements and concepts.

In a typical Surrealist Painting project,students are shown works by artists such asSalvador Dali, Rene Magritte, or FridaKahlo-artists who depict unusual combina­tions of images in a realist style. Activitiesthat promote making many playful juxtaposi­tions and interpretations before settling intomaking a finished painting are rarelyincluded in art curricula. Paradoxically,rather than promoting well-documented corevalues of the Surrealist movement(Alexandrian, 1969/1970; Foster, 1993), mostof the work time is spent on valuing andpracticing skills in realist painting.

The primary objective of a creativitycurriculum ought to be developing thecapacity of students to instinctively respondto situations with playful creative behaviors.This objective should not be undermined bysimultaneously attempting to teach otherskills that will inhibit the free flow of ideas.Incorporating the learning of disparate skillswithin such a project may cramp behaviorsand qualities that are stated as primary goalsfor a creativity curriculum because astudent's experience of focused experimenta­tion is interrupted when strictures such as"demonstrate crosshatching in your finishedwork" or "you must use cool colors in thebackground and warm colors in theforeground" impinge on a student's intuitivechoice-making.

36 ART EDUCATION / March 2010

Another characteristic of creative peoplesuggested by Rogers is their openness toexperience. Creative individuals develop adeeply rooted trust in their own capacity togenerate surprising solutions. Even as theyexperience the anxiety of creative explora­tion, they are grounded in a realistic belief(based in personal experience) thatsurrender to the creative process mayproduce surprising, useful, stimulatingresults. This openness to experience ismanifested in the willingness of a creativeindividual to suspend judgment and toconsider emerging images and ideas fromvarious perspectives.

As one reads through the many descrip­tions of the philosophies and activities of theSurrealist artists and poets, one is struck bytheir passionate belief in the capacity of thehuman mind to generate tradition-shattering,marvelous imagery and ideas. (Breton,1952/1993; Nadeau, 1944/1989). Rogers

describes this quality as possessing an"internal locus of evaluation:' the strength totrust one's own process and perceptions,however different from socially acceptednorms.

As I consider the importance of a creativeperson's inner focus and self- trust, I thinkabout the increasing demands for moni­toring and assessment in the field of arteducation. While it is possible to conceive ofbetter assessment models that attempt tocapture the quality of the process of artisticengagement, rather than relying on evalu­ating final products, I remain skeptical. Iwonder, is it possible that we art educatorsmay have to recognize that contradictionsbetween cultivating creativity and overlystructured approaches to teaching, making,and assessing cannot be meaningfullyreconciled while retaining the centrality ofenhancing students' creative capacities?

Olivia Gude is the Director ofSpiralWorkshop and a Professor in the School ofArt and Design at the University of Illinoisat Chicago. E-mail: gude@uic.edu

REFERENCES ENDNOTES

Alexandrian, S. (1970). Surrealist art. (G. Clough, Trans.) New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc.(Original work published 1969)

Bradley, F. (1997). Surrealism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Breton, A. (1997). The automatic message in The automatic message: Anti-classics ofSurrealism.London: Atlas Press. (First published in Minotaure in 1934)

Breton, A. (1993). Conversations: The autobiography ofSurrealism. (M. Polizzotti, Trans.)ew York: Paragon House. (Original work published 1952)

Breton, A. (1972). Manifestoes ofSurrealism. (R. Seaver & H. R. Lane, Trans.) Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1926)

Brotchie, A. (1995). A book ofSurrealist games. Boston: Shambhala Restone Editions.

During, E. (2005). How much truth can art bear? On Badiou's "inaesthetics;' Polygraph, }7,143-55.

Foster, H. (1993). Compulsive beauty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Garoian, C. (1999). Performing pedagogy: Toward an art ofpolitics. Albany: State University ofNew York Press.

Gude, O. (2007). Principles of possibility: Toward an art and culture curriculum. ArtEducation, 60(1),6-17.

Kant, E. (1790/1977) A theory of aesthetic judgment: From The critique of judgment. In G.Dickie and R. Sclafani (Eds.), Aesthetics: A critical anthology (pp. 641-687). New York: St.Martin's Press.

Nadeau, M. (1989). The history ofSurrealism. (R. Howard, Trans.) Cambridge, MA: BelknapPress of Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1944)

Oxford English Dictionary. (1971). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Rogers, Carl R. (1961). Toward a theory of creativity in On becoming a person. New York:Houghton Miffiin.

1 I'm grateful to the teachers of the 1997 Spiral Workshopgroup-Kate Knudson, Arlette Wasik, and MikeWierzbicki-for their early work in developing andmodeling playful Surrealist-based creativity curriculum.

2 Immanuel Kant described art as having "purposivenesswithout purpose:'

3 For more information on Spiral Workshop themecurriculum, check out the Spiral Workshop e-portfolioon the National Art Education Association website,http://naea.digication.com/Spiral/

4 Dali termed this activity the Paranoiac-CriticalMethod. "The point is to persuade others of theauthenticity of the transformations in such a way that the'real' world from which they arise loses its validity"(Brotchie,1995).

5 According to Surrealist legend the first sentenceproduced in the Surrealist game of a group of poetswriting words in the pattern of adjective, noun, verb,adjective, noun without seeing each other's additions was"The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine" (Bradley,1997).

6 For an example of promoting peer interaction as aclosure activity, see the post-project worksheet includedwith the plan for the Elementary "I" School project onthe Spiral Art Education website. httpll:spiral.aa.uic.edu

March 2010/ ART EDUCATION 37

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Playing, Creativity, Possibility

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