In Class With Jane Dunnewold

Good teachers require good efforts on the part of their students.  Not necessarily excellence in terms of what they produce in class but in their minds and hearts. These cutouts seem simple enough – to cut shapes and lay them out of the square that they were cut from in a mirror fashion.My first one was nothing like this and it was so disorganized I trashed it.  My knee-jerk response to the lesson was to just start cutting without thought, just sort of wildly cutting and pasting.  You couldn’t really even call it abstract – just a mess.  I sensed that something was astir but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  So I decided to start off with a familiar image, one of my oft used birds, until I got the hang of it. Easy enough and certainly nothing extraordinary.  I liked the designs but they did get more detailed and tight as I went along.

This is about where I began to realize that what had been bothering me was my initial reaction to being told to do something I didn’t feel like doing.   Nothing new for me … defiance has always been a strong part of my personality. But because I’ve recognized this in myself, and the problems it has imposed before, I was able to stop myself in my tracks and take control over my process.  I’ve been trying to be more intentional in my art process, so to that end, my birds were successful.

Now, I could move with more deliberation into looser, more abstract renderings. With the “rebel in me” put back in it’s box, I could step outside it!

I know that most people need to learn how to let that rebel out but that was never my problem. My lesson was to tame my insubordination so I could direct my creativity .  So, it would work for me not against me. Oh, how youth is wasted on the young!

Linking up with Nina for Off The Wall Friday!