Slow Down, So Your Students Can, Too

Making Art is about slowing down your experience of the world. All of us in some way want to suspend time and create something boundless. If we are constantly rushing around, we might get nowhere.

• Try slowing down and modeling that for your students. They are online 24/7. Connected, buzzing, probably thoroughly caffeinated at all times and at too young of an age. You may be able to show them another way of existing in the world and being in a body.

• It has nothing to do with aesthetic of the art. Jackson pollock worked in a meditative, purposeful way even with gravity as a mediator and therefore only limited control. The point is….focus on the act of making something.

• When you are making art, nothing else matters. Tell your students to put their phones away. the chances of there being an emergency in the next 2 hours are very slim. They do not need to own all of the problems of the world, nor do they need to always be tuned into it. Remind them that their job while they are with you is to make art. Nothing more, nothing less. While they are in your class, that is all that matters.

• There may be occasional exceptions —- someone’s mom is in the hospital, someone is waiting to hear back from the babysitter and it will determine whether they can go to their evening class or go home to be with their child who was sent home sick from school. Our students are human and things happen. But for the most part, students can step away from everything else and focus on their work on a regular basis. It is good for their development too, to show that they can carve out uninterrupted time for their pursuits and that is just fine.

• All of this is well and good, but remember——you have to model it!!! If they see you slowing down and focusing on your art, they might do it, too….