Abstract
Artists generally reflect as a natural part of their work. They reflect on the world and human culture, and they reflect on their own creative process. Novice artists may not understand this threshold concept of artistic endeavor, so they may not get past the stage of surface imitation. Forms of art are extremely diverse, but all students of performing arts, creative writing, visual art, music, and other disciplines can improve their creative process through verbal and written reflection.
Theoretical Background
Visual art, dance, sculpture, and other artistic disciplines create meaning through systems outside of traditional language, so it can seem counterintuitive to invite students to write to process their art. Even creative writing students may not be used to reflecting in writing on their own work. However, Dewey (1934) writes that the artist’s non-cognitive experience with making art is primary and leads naturally to cognitive reflection on that experience, which is secondary (p. 37). This two-phase esthetic experience occurs with both artists and viewers (p. 48). The second phase—reflection—should not be confused with talking about the work of art in non-organic abstractions; reflection is a means of re-engaging with the experience of making the art. Dewey writes, “Instruction in the arts of life is something other than conveying information about them. It is a matter of communication and participation in values of life by means of the imagination, and works of art are the most intimate and energetic means of aiding individuals to share in the arts of living” (p. 58).
Reflective re-engagement is necessary because objects of art are consciously separated from ordinary experience (Dewey, 1934, p. 3). Performers dance or sing or act on a stage; visual art is often framed and appears in a museum or other venue, and creative writing appears in a book, completed and presented whole. Reflection can encourage novice artists to turn back to engagement with the common ground of experience that all humans share—engagement with the world. Dewey (1934) describes his goal: “to restore continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and the everyday events, doings, and sufferings that are universally recognized to constitute experience.”
Basics of Practice
Principles
Educators of creative writing, performance, visual art, and other disciplines believe their job is to help students process experience artistically, but they don’t often try to give their students original experiences. However, this initial experience with the world is essential. Dewey (1934) writes, “The moments when the creature is both most alive and most composed and concentrated are those of fullest intercourse with the environment, in which sensuous material and relations are most completely merged” (p. 103). Experiential teachers can find ways to help students have experiences by getting them outside the classroom to observe the natural world or human culture, or by bringing elements of the world into the classroom. Part of the curriculum might be going on a walk or hike and sketching or writing what they observe. Students can also observe human society, possibly through an immersive experience with a subculture they are not familiar with. Creative teachers bring experience into the classroom through conversations with guests; short reflection exercises; video of artists, nature, and culture; and other means. McClelland (2006) writes that for Dewey the materials of artistic conduct are habit, sense, and imagination (49) . In simplified terms, vital experience may break students from their personal traditions, help them have new sensory experiences, and give them space to play with their imaginations.
Students who actively experience the world in and out of the classroom in new ways may feel slightly disoriented. Even a slight feeling of emotional risk can help them move off plateaus. McClelland (2006) writes,
It is only at those moments of instability, when our habitual world threatens to come apart, that we are incited to grow and develop: when we must think, take stock, and become conscious of our dynamic relation to the environment. It is at this point of tension that life incites us to potentially artful conduct, when we might become the crafters of a new stability. At this moment of tension, there is a newly released impulse, insisting on some re-direction and re-qualification of old habit. (p. 52)
Mclelland’s statement describes both artistic and ordinary experience. It may be true that the same elements that produce good art—a consciousness of the immediacy of the experience and reflection on that experience—also contribute to mindful living. This underscores the need to coach and mentor novice artists as they make connections between art and life, and between their roles as consumers and producers of art. Reflection can also help novice artists see an important distinction: that the materials of art are both physical—paint, clay, movement, imagery—and cultural—traditions, interpretations, imagined relationships. Reflection is a cognitive act that melds the two kinds of materials.
In addition to learning how to have meaningful experiences and to involve both physical and cultural materials in their art, novice artists need doorways into the creative process. Finished art seems perfected, as if the object of art was birthed without gestation, so novices have difficulty imagining the arduous process that led to the product. Experiential art educators can profitably model their own process in workshop and demonstrations; they can also use videos to show artists making art. To make a good novel, writers should read a thousand novels. Dancers and actors should study and discuss a thousand professional performers, and visual artists should reflect on a thousand paintings. Doing this work on their own can benefit some students, but the benefit is amplified when performed in a community with a mentor helping students make connections between life, art processes, and art products. This can be done in one-on-one conversation, group discussion, workshops, and written reflection assigned periodically through the process to make students articulate their purposes.
Reflection on process has multiple other benefits. Experiential writing helps arts students engage more cognitively with their discipline and thus “develop important life skills such as observation, analysis, reflection, and creative and critical thinking” (Wellman, 2014, 11). Developing these skills helps students to become both better artists and better citizens. In other words, the same aspects that might be missing from bad art—a consciousness of the immediacy of the experience and reflection on that experience—are elements that are often missing from unmindful living.
Experiential writing can also grow students’ vocabularies, so that they can articulate experiences that might otherwise only live in their brains and bodies unspoken and thus half-learned. Experiential writing can also help students generate new ideas for projects, excavate and refine meaning in their work, and become a more self-aware collaborator. Also, students who consistently reflect can more cogently justify the importance of their work to audiences, publishers, galleries, and producers. Kindelan (2010) writes that workshop classes can go beyond being mere showcases for student art by helping students develop cognitive skills that will help them become better professional artists and citizens (31). She encourages art educators to use some traditional kinds of experiential education to help their students, including interdisciplinary and independent research projects, service-learning and civic engagement, and study abroad programs.
How to
Have students write before, during, and after engaging with their artistic medium. Writing can help them plan, reflect on what they have discovered, brainstorm how to move forward or solve problems, and evaluate their own processes.
- Exercises can vary in length and can happen while another student is performing or being evaluated.
- Assignments can encourage students to think critically about their experiences and create theories/models to structure their learning.
- Require students to keep a journal dedicated to your course. This can be a combination sketch and writing notebook.
- Before beginning an assignment, invite students to journal about what they expect this experience will be like and how it will expand skills they might already have.
- As students work through a task and run into challenges, invite them to journal, so that they can clarify what the issue is and excavate a solution.
- Keep their reflective writing low-risk. Use a gentle touch to guide them, and avoid grading their writing. Grades are external motivators and can detract from the purpose, which is to facilitate growth as an artist and human being.
- Encourage somatic awareness through meditation. For example, if you are a voice teacher in the middle of a private lesson, pause intermittently to ask the student what they are experiencing internally.
- Language can help dancers learn choreography and other performers learn rhythm by explaining the movement through narrative.
- Arrange for students to work alone, in pairs or groups, and in whole-class workshops. Some disciplines are done solo—such as writers and visual artists. Others such as performers in theater and dance are innately collaborative. All novice artists can benefit from collaboration in communities as a means of learning technique, process, self-evaluation, and artistic values. Have the students observe each other’s work and write their observations and critiques. Then invite students to reflect on their own performance.
Teaching Materials and Resources:
Drawing Studio Syllabus SPRING 2022: Amy Beecham
Painting III Syllabus FALL 2022: Amy Beecham
Syllabi from Writing/Dance collaborations:
Dance 317 Fall 2023
Quick Links
Hebblewhite, G. (July 8, 2021). “A Guide to Keeping a Reflective Art Journal
“Learning to Look.” Hood Museum. Dartmouth University. https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/learn/k-12-educators/educator-resources/learning-to-look
McWilliams, C. (July 1, 2022). “How to Teach Self-Reflection, Critiques, Artist Statements, and Curatorial Rationales Like a Pro.” The Art of Education University. | https://theartofeducation.edu/2022/07/jul-how-to-teach-self-reflection-critiques-artist-statements-and-curatorial-rationales-like-a-pro/
Reece-Cusey, S. (Mar 14, 2014). “How to Make Time for Reflection in the Arts Classroom.”
ARTSBLOGFor Arts Professionals in the Know. https://blog.americansforthearts.org/2019/05/15/how-to-make-time-for-reflection-in-the-arts-classroom
“Reflective Writing.” Norwich University of the Arts, Library and Learning Support.
https://library.norwichuni.ac.uk/welcome-to-study-skills/reflective-writing/
“Visual Directions.” University of the Arts London. https://teachingexchange.arts.ac.uk/visual-directions/reflective/examples/
“Writing A Reflective Artist’s Statement.” Pattern Observer.
https://patternobserver.com/2021/02/16/writing-a-reflective-artists-statement/
References
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as Experience. G. P. Putnam's Sons. https://courses.bloodedbythought.org/wa2/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/05_1934_DeweyJohn_Art-as-Experience.pdf
Kindelan, N. (2010). “Demystifying Experiential Learning in the Performing Arts.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 2010(124), 31-37.
https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.418
McClelland, K. A. (2005) "John Dewey: Aesthetic Experience and Artful Conduct," Education and Culture: 21(2), 44-62.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/eandc/vol21/iss2/art6
Wellman, L. (2014). “Experiential Learning through the Visual Arts: Developing Essential Knowledge for LifeHood.” Dartmouth College Hood Museum of Art Quarterly, Summer 2014, 10-11.
Further Reading
“Dewey’s Aesthetics” (First published Fri Sep 29, 2006; substantive revision Thu Jun 24, 2021). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-aesthetics/
Perron, W. (2013) Through the Eyes of a Dancer. Wesleyan University Press.
Taylor, J. C. (1981). Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts. Phoenix Books. University of Chicago Press; Second edition.
Tordini, C. E. (2018). “Art, Experience and Learning: Art As Enhancement Of Experiential Learning.” Master of Philosophy in Organizational Dynamics Theses. University of Pennsylvania. https://repository.upenn.edu/od_theses_mp/15