I rarely use the term art-making.

It's too intimidating to use the word art. Good art, bad art, great art, lousy art...

With children, art conjures up free time and 'hurrah' exciting activities. With adults, the common response is "No, no, I've never been any good at art."  I ask myself, how does Hurrah! shift into No, no? 

For me, art-making is like marinating the spirit, tenderizing the soul. Delicate. Exhilarating. Challenging from within. No right way, no wrong way. A blank canvas

Teaching Artists often coordinate art classes with classroom topics to further heighten students' buy-in to their standard studies. An elementary school History class was studying "Historical and Famous People" and we were mixing messy flour paste to make paper mache figures over an armature of plastic bottles. Every two students shared a large mixing bowl, measuring cups, fresh water, and a bag of flour. Everyone wanted to measure ingredients; no one wanted to mix with their hands. There was silence in the studio, some giggles.  Minutes pass. One brave boy said  "Just like my grandmother making tortillas," and dove-in. Shortly everyone was mixing and messing.

While we were squishing strips of newspaper in our handmade paste and wrapping our first paper layer around our bottles, most students shared their ideas about people of history and their artwork. Some students hadn't yet selected their historical character; a few wanted to create figures like Hulk Hogan, Poncho Villa, The President, the school bus driver, the priest...

This 6 week residency gave us the leisure to change our ideas, our artwork, our figures, and even our own history. 

One quiet boy worked diligently but was reticent to say aloud who he was creating. This was a child who did not regularly speak. He did not seem to have many friends. I focused on holding space for him to engage with the project in his own way. In the third week, midway through class he blurted-out "I'm making my uncle!" The teacher looked at me and nodded his head enthusiastically. 

I said "Thank you. Your uncle. I like this idea!  Why uncle?"

Silence.  Then he blurted out,  "He got dead. Shot. At the drug store. A gun. Killed dead. In his heart."

The students froze. Young eyes wide-open, silence, motion arrested. 

I was able to turn the conversation by loudly proclaiming my love for being alive. He responded that he loved being alive. Students joined in and soon they were patting his back, flour paste on their hands. And then, back to our artwork. 

After class, many students walked with him, some held his hand. The moment they had shared changed the classroom. Unified it. And the boy’s life changed to include compassion, friendship, truth, connection.

Surprise and the unexpected serve as fuel and reward for Teaching Artists, and our experiences offer an opportunity to listen, engage, conjure, and create across generations.