In a recent post I recounted a few thoughts about art, photography and the id[i] as prompted by an experience with Ekphrasis 3.
That post referenced John Curtis and Mary Khosh’s contributions to an arts publication, and to Plato, all of which (who?) I wish to reference again in a different but related context.
While I was working at CBU(1995-2017), I welcomed the opportunity to be one of a dozen or so volunteers to adjudicate the local elementary school district’s annual heritage fair. Entries were shortlisted by teacher volunteers with the idea of fomenting interest in history and heritage. At the same time every year, the schools exhibited student art – again, as selected by their teachers. I still enjoy attending such exhibits whenever I can.
Over the years, I became aware of trends in the art exhibited. The first trend was in the sheer numbers of participants. Fully three walls of the art gallery were crammed with hundreds of works of art from the lower grades (maybe to 6th grade or so).
On the lone remaining wall were contributions from students in grades 7-12, numbering in the dozens, not hundreds. Further, it was plain to see that the contributions in number were in inverse proportion to their grade. To illustrate (no pun intended) I’ll say the numbers were something like 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 10 (this last representing grade 12.
What’s happening here?
Next, let’s consider colour. In the lower grades, the artwork was alive and joyful, if use of colour is any indication. But similar to the quantities illustrated above, use of colour diminished as the students progressed – as they got older, as it were. Youth equalled bright and joyful. The older they got, the darker. By grade twelve the images were less joyful, more brooding.
Now, with respect to “feeling,” I couldn’t help but notice that, like the colours chosen, the subjects shifted from cheerful and optimistic to sad and pessimistic. The younger grades showed the world full of sunlight, romping pets and playful friends and family. Conversely, the older grades depicted bloody noses, dead flowers and pessimism.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that there is more to explore here than meets the eye (pun intended), more than quantity and quality. But what is happening here?
How can it be that children appear to be less joyful as they “mature”? It almost appears that an inherent – a natural – creativity exhibited with youthful exuberance is slowly stripped from all but a few. And, dare I say, perhaps a few “chosen” children?
There is no doubt in my mind that the education system – use of the word “system” tells us something about intent – stifles creativity and imagination in the vast majority of every cohort of students. “Systems” prefer uniformity, yet social rhetoric supports competition. Social structures enculturate winners over losers. But public education should reflect and be focused on our raising healthy, happy and intelligent citizens. Instead, the “system” sponsors and rewards survival, not of the fittest, but of the most cunning, the most driven and the most selfish.
Curtis and Khosh write that creativity can be taught. I have my doubts. I think a better way to look at the matter – or as I illustrated elsewhere from the movie Patch Adams[ii] – look through it, look beneath it. They (Curtis and Khosh) do add that “creativity and imagination … can be nurtured,” but their approach is the teaching of creativity. Rather, I’d say, creativity can be released and nurtured (or should that be unleashed?).
Curtis and Khosh relate a practice of an unnamed economics professor at Eckerd College who encourages “radical noticing” of a world of “curiosity and experimentation,” of astonishment. In some circles the experience of enlightenment includes such radical noticing as a way to subvert our primordial selves – our id – to think beyond our “brain’s natural tendanc[ies] to be on the lookout for danger,” and the natural tendency to organize and categorize stimuli. It’s how we learn, but what is learned?
To a child with a hammer, everything is a nail, something to be reshaped, something to be reformed, to subdue. Our creative self doesn’t just consider threats and conformations. Our creative self, when freed of the fear of being different, considers new ways of seeing, of thinking. “Fear of making mistakes hinders creative thinking,” and forward thinking.
Apparently – thanks to fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) – we know where in the brain creativity takes place. It sounds a bit clinical, but “our brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) is the home of the wandering mind, of daydreams and dreams” (Curtis and Khosh). “The DMN is a filter for what you think is beautiful or not … memorable or not, meaningful or not, and it’s what helps to make the arts and aesthetics a very personal experience for each of us” (from Your Brain on Art, in Curtic and Khosh).
There’s more to their position – prefrontal cortex, medial prefrontal, etc. – but it all points me to that “marvelous state” of flow whither our creative self is allowed to free range, as it were. Curtis and Khosh talk about learning creativity, as in teaching it, but as much as I respect their praxis I wish to avoid that notion of “teaching” in favour of “unleashing.” I’ve seen what “teaching” does.
Creativity is known to lower blood pressure and, consequently, improve personal health. Consider those early grades’ art projects noted above. Seems like we could all use a daily dose of creativity.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll resume my freewriting exercises.
=30=
[i] the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression (Dictionary.com).
[ii] In the Robin Williams film, Patch Adams (Universal Pictures 1998), a physician (Williams) treats the whole patient by triggering their inner child, just by clowning around. There is a scene in which Adams is chastised for not seeing the whole picture. To illustrate, take a moment to hold out one hand in front of you and look at it. How many fingers do most people see? Four. Now, focus beyond those fingers. How many fingers to you see? Eight! This demonstrated way of seeing things differently, more imaginatively.
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