Artist to Artist Workshop

The above drawing was inspired by a great poem we read in our poetry session.

Last week I went to Fargo to take part in an Artist to Artist workshop designed to help teaching artists become better teachers. I found the experience inspiring, energizing and extremely helpful. When I graduated college in 2004 I had not taken one education class (in fact I avoided them like the plague). I figured I would be creating art, not teaching it. Six years later I find my resume is equally full of teaching experience and visual art experience. I found myself enjoying teaching art and realized I have a knack for it as well. However, having zero education background I found trial and error to be my best method of teaching skills. I would often say to myself, "I'm not sure why but things work better when I do this," or "Ahhh, it works way better when I do things this way." Getting a chance to learn and talk with other teaching artists was exactly what I needed.

Linda Ehreth from the North Dakota Council on the Arts and Barbara Cox from the Perpich Center for Arts Education were the two leading the workshop. The 8 hour workshop started with dance and movement. We then had an acting lesson, which was equal parts team building skills which was a lot of fun. I wrote Six Nails in our poetry lesson in the afternoon. Each session had a time for reflection and by the end of the day I felt like I was back in college for a day. I realized how much I missed critical thinking and being in a room full of peers who want to learn.

I wanted to post my evaluation (guidelines provided by artist to artist) of the workshop:

I came expecting:

to learn new teaching methods
meet new people in my field
to explore what it means to be an educator

I got:

new tools to help teach
inspiration
a new outlook on what and how I teach art
confidence
an energized spirit

I wish:

I could attend this workshop 4 times a year

Now I need:

to implement what i learned
transfer the energy into results
to remember what i learned

Three things I value from this workshop include:

constructive assessment with peers
working together with talented people to enrich the lives of students
a collaborative passion for the arts

Next I will:

explore more challenging instructing opportunities
challenge myself to find new and better ways to teach art
use my critical friends (contacts) to soar to new levels of art education

Six Nails (poem)

six Nails
because it needed more than five
six nails
to hold the wood in place
six nails
surrounded by chipping paint
a layer of peach
light green barely peeking out below
sky blue even further down
only visable in a few spotted places
dents of trauma
gashes in the woods flesh
six nails
for repair
six nails
in a very abstract pattern
seven nails would be a crowd
each nail plugging barely into the larger wood behind the wood
six nails
in different states of rust
one brown
one spotted brown
one freckled with rust
two rustless
the younger brothers
the newest pair to save the family
if only father would stay around
to keep all six in place
otherwise mother will keep falling

William Hessian

This was my 7 minute poem.

Yesterday I spent the day in Fargo, ND at an artist to artist workshop. I met a lot of very talented artists/teachers and learned a lot about the craft of education. One of the lessons during the workshop was a poetry lesson taught by Becca. At the end of the lesson we had 7 minutes to write a poem, Six Nails was my attempt.

The entire workshop made me realize how much I miss the college atmosphere with peers sharing work with peers. Critical reflections on work, and valuable discussions. During the poetry section I was reminded of taking a few poetry classes at Winona state University with my friend Jesse Valley. Together we wrote some very interesting poems, and really had a blast reading and critiquing each others' work. I miss writing poetry, and is something I do not do enough. The WSU poetry classes were my favorite classes outside of the art department. The classes inspired my 'skewer' mini book (which i just learned helped me get my first artist-in-residency).

I plan to write more about the Artist to Artist workshop and what I learned there. This is just a preview focusing on the poem I got to write. What a fun day of learning.