Entry No. 5
3.17.23
#TABstract(meetsexpressionism)
thinking:
TAB (Teaching for Artistic Behaviors) FREAKED me out as a concept. Still does a little, although those fears were eased through observing the Beattie Elementary Art Class, which is a TAB format. The TAB observation was also really awesome because the 4th graders I got to observe? Their main room teacher was my 5th grade teacher from the way back. And the principal of the school was my elementary principal- we all had a good smile over the mini reunion and a laugh over the fact I was “proof that the students really DO grow up!”.
TAB was fascinating to see. Students experimented with a variety of 2D and 3D media, and navigated the airy studio with confidence and ease. They asked questions of both teachers and peer-students alike on how they could convey an emotion or ensure their vision come to fruition. Students worked on a variety of things but were focused and determined. These students have been doing TAB since kindergarten, and in February, they were nearly to their final year of the program, and their confidence and creativity showed the benefits, they as ARTISTS were reaping. TAB allows for students to confidently explore the tenets of Studio Habits of Mind, creating artist behaviors that were comfortable and routine to them.
In addition to this, their creative-thinking and problem-solving skills they learn and develop in this TAB classroom can be transferred to every other area of life, as the freedom to fail will lead them to becoming knowledgeable, comfortable, and familiar with trial and error, that eventually results in success. Students at this young age may rarely get to have failures like this, especially in a place where growth, re-thinking, and re-doing is not only normalized but encouraged.
BRAINY also highlights and develops an understanding of the importance of looking at historical and contemporary art, and understanding art history, within the process of creating. Students look at artworks in a museum context, learning the story behind the works, and then reflect upon the work they viewed by creating their own work utilizing concepts of the art they just learned about.
TAB’s talent for teaching creative thinking and problem solving skills zooms my memory back to 4th and 5th grade when I participated in my elementary school’s Odyssey of the Mind after-school program. Odyssey of the Mind, or OM, is a program focused on an end of the season competition that is split into two parts: Long Term Problems, which are solved throughout the acting of a student-made scripted story, and Spontaneous, which is a randomized and teammates work together to quickly answer the question, provide responses, or solve the problem. In 5th grade, my team created a performance that had to explain the reasoning for certain natural landforms, as captured with NASA
Satellite imagery. My team created the daring story that Aliens had crash landed in the Painted Desert, and it was the job of Three NASA scientists (who sang insurance jingles as they traveled, replacing the insurance company name with “NASA”), and a Men-in-Black stylized character to investigate and figure out why the aliens had painted the desert. Our answer? They had been trying to teach us to shuffle to the Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO.
The hilarious skit ended with all three scientists and our men-in-black investigator learning to shuffle in peace with our two alien friends. More importantly, we learned to utilize creative thinking, how to problem solve, and referred our play to references from our own pop culture (similar to skills learned in BRAINY), and got 1st place in our Regional competition. We then also gained a 4th place ranking in our State competition. The skills I learned in OM are priceless. Quick thinking and problem solving is useful and necessary, no matter where life takes you- from working in fast food to becoming an art teacher to being an actual NASA scientist.
Even if I do not commit to a full-fledged TAB or BRAINY style education for my future students, utilizing components of these pedagogies is integral to creating students who are not just artists, but creative thinkers and efficient problem solvers, and that to me is an essential part of art education and why it should matter to all students, families, and administration.
Making:
Making this linocut, I imagined really texturized brushstrokes at first, and could I emulate said brushstrokes in the medium of a linocut? After all, TAB is all about exploration, and as I've seen, a lot of that exploration is founded in understanding material and medium explorations. I then felt as if the brush stroke texture by itself was not enough, and needed more- as I thought, I wondered about color. I had no color inks... but I did have a big box of Crayola markers... Good enough. I considered simply color in the negative space of the print I had made but it seemed to straightforward. I was listening to an audiobook- Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art . Listening to the narrator describe the world and ways that the Abstract Expressionists worked, while considering ideas of TAB, I was inspired. I pulled out my text stamps, I pulled out my other lino cuts I had made this semester, and I went for it. I inked up stamps with Crayola markers and my half dry ink pad and stamped them every which way. I utilized an irregular grid like lino and added more texture with it. I inked up my mini disco ball stamp in pink Crayola marker and stamp, stamp, stamped all over the place. I scribbled swirls of Crayola onto the paper, I SMASHED inky markers into the page, making them ooze exhausted aged ink into puddles. I kept going, going, going, until my heart was content (and coincidentally my friend called me requesting we meet up for dinner).
This piece also utilizes ideas from BRAINY as I was inspired to utilize the cacophony of color and stamps and really just put stamps on paper (the truest/purest form of that media? As Clement Greenburg would adore? Who knows.) much like a oversimplified iteration of how the Ab-Exers worked. Taking little bits of an idea from a selection of artworks and rapid-fire incorporating it into an artwork of my own is a style of operation much like that of the schedule of events we utilize for BRAINY students.
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