Rules
the REST of the week #160
It’s the rest of the week. Time to break some rules.
“No one is bad at art.”
This is what the art teacher at the end-of-the-year art show told me last Tuesday.
I wandered and wondered through the school-turned-art-gallery, unable to contain my amazement. Somewhere along the way, I wished out loud that I was good at art.
“There’s no such thing as being bad at art,” the teacher said emphatically. “You are an artist already—you just need to express and experience it.”
She went on to explain how important it is to break the students’ fear of expressing themselves.
“You give them the freedom to create. You let them break the rules—you tell them they can pick whatever colors they want and then they develop confidence.”
“The students surprise themselves,” she continued. “They make something that they didn’t know they had inside of them—and they feel proud of it.”
The art work was stunning—from paintings to textured pieces, sculptures to functional items like a papier-mâché lamp.
And I could not help but imagine how freeing it must feel to create without first running everything through a list of rules and ideas of how things are supposed to be—to draw, cook, build, write, paint, plant, play… to discover and learn in the process, uninterrupted by second guesses.
Here’s to freedom and discovery—and rest.
May your rest be sweet.
Alicia