Visual Arts Program: Ina Gallon
At AmPark, the Visual Arts Program is an important component of our belief in educating the whole child—mind, body and spirit. We take the time to explore a variety of materials and processes that will encourage each child to express and share his or her unique ideas and stories in innovative ways. We learn from one another and from our environment, and through investigating the work of other artists and cultures, past and present. We get messy while discovering new ways to look, see, learn, and enjoy being artists. Connections are made that support the work that takes place in all our classrooms, where students experience with materials enriches their project work. Two and three-dimensional artwork, and the journeys taken along the way to their creation, are continually celebrated and shared with the larger school community, helping to instill pride and encourage new ideas, as well as visually enriching our environment.
It is essential that the work in the studio and the classroom should have at its core the interests and experiences of the children, while providing them with the chance to try new things without worrying about making mistakes. In early childhood, the focus remains on the process of making, with less stress on the product, so that children begin to gain an understanding of, and confidence in, how to use the materials as they learn how to think and plan. In upper grades, this focus shifts toward more specific techniques and skills that make it possible for students to visually communicate more complex ideas with an artist’s approach. In all grades children are encouraged to work on projects over time, being able to experience that “finishing” work doesn’t always happen in one class session. This teaches them to think about and revisit their work, as well as giving them the excitement of watching their creation change with each new part of the process. Great effort is taken to document different stages of the work with digital photographs and notes.
Children always have a number of choices during our art classes, so that even when starting with the same basic process, such as creating a collage, they can select from a wide range of materials to bring to their worktable. When children work together in this way, exciting things happen. They are moments that are not always, perhaps, visible on paper, but are instead small pieces of discovery and learning. Sometimes a conversation begins between two children about what happens when certain colors are mixed together and others join in. One child helps another figure out how to cut a certain shape out of paper; someone examines the textures of her collage materials by rubbing them together to hear the sounds they make before deciding how to glue them together. Sounds and conversations are all part of the process of the artist at work! As available choices vary and broaden, the hope is that each child can work with the materials that he or she feels most drawn to and stimulated by, encouraging them to communicate ideas and images with confidence and pride.