Tag Archives: Burton

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I found this article to be a blast to the past for me. I learned a lot about the development of children’s art making when I was in the my undergraduate studies at the College of Saint Rose in Albany. One thing that really resonated with me within this article was how important it is for students to be creative and to have the liberty to express who they are within their artwork. I had an art history professor who wouldn’t let us doodle in class because he felt like it was an art form and that if we were creating art, we weren’t listening.

What really intrigued with all of the information that is presented within the high school section. I’m used to seeing inappropriate little doodles (especially from boys) all over school property. Burton suggested that they are working through the material and through visual language to work out the ambiguity of the world and of their bodies, and their lives. For my SLO test I had to give students an array of materials and the objective was to visually display an emotion of mood within their one day artwork. I had a lot of generic responses. However, I had a lot of students create really thought provoking art works. One in particular was from a muslim students who depicted “feeling controlled” you could tell that she didn’t to discuss why she felt the way she did, but she was able to depict it visually in order to get a message across. The article made me think of this situation. Older children use their artwork to work out or dig deeper into ideas and feeling that they normally would not discuss.

This, from burton perspective is because they are entering a mode that is similar to scribble play or drawing that kids would do in their adolescence. This reminds me of frobel and his toys that would have students working out complex problems through play. The development that Burton described was very much like this process. Students should, and be allotted time to create art work that is expressive, creative, thought provoking, and meaningful to their development and their life.

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Burton discusses the different phases/steps of development in children and how each step affects their art-making. One particular point I found most important is her emphasis on fostering student’s expression of personal experience with their own imagination.  By doing so, art could remain a vital part of the student’s education and life. Of course, with the current push for standardized-learning, it can sometimes seem impossible to actually do so. In this way, I feel that it is just important to push for adults to consider the freedom of art-making and show them how art-making does not have to necessarily follow specific rules and regulations, but instead can allow for great opportunities through the freedom of art-making.

For my own artistic response to Burton, I went back to some of my own artwork growing up and sought to re-create it. Though I knew it would be difficult, it was a lot harder than I initially thought it would be.  Especially in the beginning, I was having constant doubts in my head and having feelings of second-guessing, though as it went on, I grew more comfortable. I’d like to say right now that though I understand many people have issue with doing direct copies/replicas of other artworks, I find that doing direct copies actually can provide many good learning opportunities, especially when it comes to figuring out specific art-making techniques originally utilized. Many times as I was working, I stopped and thought about the logic behind how the originally image was made and contemplated on what my original thought process may have been. I found the whole process very reflective and allowed me to also consider how I can often feel limited by myself when I am making art.

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Recreations (left) of the older works (right)

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life time to paint like a child”- Pablo Picasso

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Judith Burton discusses the need to focus on the personal expression of youth and adolescents in art making rather than directed art techniques and outcomes. In her article, “The integrity of personal, experience, or the presence of life in art,” she explains the developmental stage of youth and adolescents, and breaks down the thought process during art making for these age groups. Her article also discusses how fostering youths’ expression of personal experience with imagination can cultivate better perspectives toward the arts, be it: visual, written, auditory, or performative. If art education was directed in such a manner, then much of the youth would not find it to be pointless but pertinent.
Burton’s essay arouses many questions for me. Many focusing around Rolling’s Analytic form of Arts Based Research (ABR). The main overarching question was how do you foster Analytic self-expression with youth when administration and parents’ perceptions are similar to Burton’s statement that, “in the western world, grown-ups were not so comfortable with the works that denied acceptable standards of beauty or realism in the art of the children however young,” (p 13)? I have a tendency to think that art education is run the way it is currently in public education settings because many districts’ administration view art education this way (this bias only coming from the perspective of my current district where I am employed). The overall arching theme of education currently is statistic and data based research. Administration in my district has a tendency to only support the arts if we can focus it in this direction—which I believe is discipline based arts. Burton also made me question my current teaching because I do fit into the realms she describes as ineffective. I would love to implement strategies that focus on youths’ imaginative creative self, but the few times that I have tried, my students didn’t take interest. I fail at the implementation. I have started several lessons with my students where it has been working through materials. They stop about half way through a thirty-minute class and ask if we can start the real lesson. How do you carry on lessons that are self-explorative in theme? What if the overarching theme you introduce for some direction and scaffolding doesn’t fit? To be honest, I find frustration in these articles because, yes, these ideas are beautiful, and I do agree with them to a certain extent; but, how do you affectively approach implementing said ideas? In a bias, bold statement of my own narrowly formulated opinion, I feel these theoretical ideas seem untested in a variety of environments. I feel that these practices are implemented in settings that have income and support flexibility in the teaching atmosphere.

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Written Response:

Reading this article was eye-opening for me. My topic for the literature review is based on place, something that has been a theme in my artwork and life. As I’ve said before, my memories as a kid have influenced every aspect of my life. I can remember my journey as an artist and how prominent art has been in my life.

As a child, turtles were my world. Old, wise and understanding, I felt a close connection with my turtles, especially when my sisters would play without me. I spent my summer days playing with bugs, making rings out of peach pits and creating my own perfume out of flowers and water. My imagination was raging; I dreamt of worlds that would never exist, words that my turtle would never speak, and friendships with animals and bugs of all kinds. When I received the book Old Turtle, I felt like I finally found the world I belonged in.

The pages were painted with vibrancies and colors that spoke in a language I was just beginning to understand. I saw the brushstrokes and the drips, the way the colors became animals or clouds, oceans or mountains. I was learning the language of art, love and peace. In my eyes, Old Turtle was the voice of reason, the one who looked for peace and equality in all species and reminded those of what is most important only when they forgot.

This turtle emulated everything I saw in my own turtles. They were my best friends.

I reread the book over ten years later and found that the whole time Old Turtle was arguing that God was everything. God IS. But to me God was nothing. I reflected on this newfound element in a book that I must’ve read 50 times and wondered if this was a world I was meant to be a part of. Even now, writing this, I question the differences in my outlook on life over the years. The innocence and hope for peace and equality has been replaced with the expectancy of competition and a race to be better than the person sitting next to you. Sometimes, I wish there was an Old Turtle for us all to respect and understand, regardless of whom we pray to, or if we even pray at all.

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The Presence of Life in Art

I’ve posted a new reading— this week try to do both a visual and verbal response — your choice which to emphasize.  The reading is Judith Burton, “The Integrity of Personal Experience, or the Presence of Life in Art.”  She describes how young children approach art-making, and my question for you is:

How can we find the space, time and mindset to reconnect with our own sense of creative freedom and exploration in the midst of the pressures of adult life? What works for you?