We got it covered

This summer, I stepped off my usual path through the maze that I call ‘camp’.  I tried a little different tack.  I am trying to be sure I have projects that are simple enough to get done in the allotted time and are still worth doing.   This year I relaxed a bit more and allowed things to move to a greater drum beat than my own.  It was awkward at times, but in reality, it was better for me and I think better for the campers as well.  I really don’t plan on establishing another rut for camp.  It wasn’t totally fixed, but it left me feeling as though it progressed to the positive.  I definitely felt that I was destroying the norm.

            Sometimes when I, or students, get so far off base that the struggle is bleeding the life out of a work, the best thing to do is to render it impossible to go on from where I am.  I have painted out an entire section of a picture before just to gain a new perspective.  Sometimes I will say to a student, jokingly, “I’m going to ruin your life now.”  The first time I said that, the student had struggled and painted over and adjusted and corrected until frustration was taking a toll on his ability to continue at all.  He looked at me and said, “Well you might as well, because I’m sure not doing anything good and I hate it.”   With about 4 strokes, I reset to a kinder simpler state of the painting.  All that work was obliterated by 4 or 5 strokes.  He was back to a basic place where he had it right some time before.

            “I want you to leave that alone and let it dry for a bit” I said and pointed out an area that could and should be fixed.  When he started working on the old spot, he had new energy and vision.  Now days, when I say “Okay I’m going to ruin your life,” he will reply “Have at it.”  Most others do too.  I try to wait until they’ve had quite enough of their own effort before taking the brush in my own hands. 

            I don’t like taking a brush to a student’s painting or a hand to a student’s sculpture.  I know it is that person’s work and should not be mine.  I’m not cloning, I’m teaching.  Yet sometimes making marks on my own canvas pad does not change the perspective of the student or add to the student’s ability or understanding.  One stroke with the student watching can sometimes free them to continue with renewed vision and drive.  My stroke usually melts beneath his or her brush quite quickly once the understanding is in place.

            I hate the concept of erasure and starting over.  Most of the time a student will serve his work better if he works through the problem at hand.  My true belief is that an eraser is to draw in the lighter values not to correct the mistakes.  When students think there is no eraser, they are more cautious about the lines they place and they learn to draw them lighter in the beginning. 

            But ah, the painter paints.  The mistakes of a painting can be erased and changed quite quickly if you only know how.  One day, the painting is signed and carried away.  The painter may remember that there are mistakes hidden under the  layers – or maybe he will forget because it came out right.  That is the teacher’s job –to help it come out right when it is finished.

             So this year, I began differently on the canvas of camp.  One of the projects I had for the first camp was misjudged and didn’t get finished and yet it became the basis for a better planned project in the second camp when another I had planned fell through.  It almost seemed like a giant stroke of a divine brush that cleared away the mistake and frustration allowing for a better end.  The work is finished and sent away.  I can recall things I might have done differently, but in the end, it was good.