Art Making Process Essay

The teaching of artmaking process is one in which there appear to be no right answers as it is frequently related to the teachers own understanding of the material at hand. (Schon, 1996). As art making is an open ended process there are a number of difficulties posed in instruction. One option is to engage art students in the process in a highly conscious and reflective manner. This was the mode in which the author conducted a 10 week course on the subject designed after intimately observing how contemporary artists worked. The first step in teaching art is said to be informing and inspiring students with various methods of artistic practice by playing video taped interviews of artists. The understanding of the use of big ideas by artists is one of the most important facets. Exploration of the big idea provides clarity of concept and insight into the artmaking process which is understood only through reflective practice. Maintaining documentation is also important. This provided students new perspectives in art making as they indulged in reviewing the big idea with personal relevance over a period of many weeks. Identification of the correct big idea is also linked to problems faced by artists in artmaking. Problems can be overcome with proper identification of the big idea and pursuing it with an open mind without an early closure. The delay in closure occurs when the artist discuses the concept repeatedly with himself thereby providing him better insight and enhancing creativity. Thus it is the understanding of the big idea, main concepts, the base and boundaries of knowledge which enable an artist to communicate his ideas most effectively to his audience. While artmaking cannot be taught in the form of a formula of success, the instructions provided in a generalized manner provide for developing the students creativity as well as art practice as was seen in the ten week artmaking project detailed in the article. Reference: 1. Schon, D. A. (1996). In D. O’Reilly, (Ed. ), Learning through reflection on conversations. In conversation with Donald Schon, Capability, the HEC Journal, vol. 2 (2). Accessed on 10 December 2006 at http://www. lle. mdx. ac. uk/hec/journal/ 2-2/l-2. htm, l-10.