how (not) to kill art

This is based on an experience I had yesterday. It is a cautionary tale.

I attended an art lesson with a student I work with. He is six years old. The lesson was a whole class lesson, meaning about 20 six-year-olds were learning how to use oil pastels at the same time. You will not be expected to attempt this, so take a deep breath. This is exposition.

The student I work with, in addition to other things, has difficulty with fine motor skills. It is difficult for him to hold writing and drawing utensils. He has a hard time knowing which direction to move his pencil or pen or oil pastel in order to make a particular shape or mark. Additionally, he has some tactile sensitivity and doesn't particularly enjoy the feel of oil pastels in or on his hand.

He arrived in his class around the same time I did and was being asked to catch up with the lesson: drawing a bunch of flowers in a vase. The rest of the class had begun about 15 minutes earlier. 

We caught up together. His vase looked more like a bowl. His flower outlines looked like circles and were situated far away from the vase shape. 

Meanwhile, the lesson continued.

"When you shade, you want to make sure you shade like this. If you shade like this, that's the wrong way. It won't look right."

The wrong way was the only way the student I was working with could shade. The right way required him to have better dexterity. Naturally, a helpful little girl seated to the left of the student attempted to correct him. 

"You're doing it wrong!" the little girl proclaimed loudly. I told her to work on her own and reassured the student he was doing fine.

"Real artists take the wrappers off their pastels. They break them and hold them like this to do shading."

A helpful little boy to the right had already peeled off a bunch of the wrappers on the oil pastels they were expected to share. The wrappers lay scattered around the desk. The student I was working with looked at the unpeeled oil pastel he was supposed to use (because leaves had to be green, of course) with the revulsion which some people reserve for spiders.

I rewrapped the green. He used it.

"You need to blend the two colors with your fingers or else you'll have a line, and that won't look right."

I asked the student if he wanted to blend his two colors with his fingers, wishing I had a Q-Tip to offer as an alternative. He said no. We left the two colors unblended and, therefore, "wrong".

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Were there kids in the class who could have learned the secrets of realistic shading? Sure. Looking around the room, some of the students were doing it the way the instructor described. It does give a three-dimensional quality to the drawing. That's great. 

But to say that anything done differently is "wrong"? Maybe, if you're going for realism. If there's only one way to do it. If you want to teach anyone who can't do it your way or chooses to do it a different way that they can't do art.

Art is subjective and is supposed to be about personal expression. And different people have different ability levels. There is room for learning technique, but there should also be a space where the act of making something interesting to look at is open to everyone. Life would be very dull if all of the art looked the same.

There is a saying: "Perfection is the enemy of progress." It's true. Perfection is also the enemy of variety and personality and, ultimately, artistic expression. Enjoy your art. Work on technique, sure, but enjoy your art.