Creative Exploration

I spent part of my morning on the playground today working with kids who were coloring their parent's hopes and wishes for their year. I happened to have a bottle of glue with me and it attracted Ben who wondered to the table. Ben had no intreats in coloring but loved the glue so I let him explore with the glue for awhile. He dripped it on to the paper and used both the glue cap and his fingers to spread the glue around. He had nothing to glue but the process of glueing and the tactile experience of the sticky substance was captivating and he enjoyed doing this for a while. 

After awhile he seemed done with glueing and I asked him if he wanted to glue something to his paper, we didn't have any collage supplies so I modeled how to rip paper. His eyes lit up with excitement.  He than began to rip, which was not an easy task. He used coordination and fine motor skills to rip each stip. Sometimes he struggled, yet he felt a sense of accomplishment when he finally was able to tear the paper. He then returned to glueing but this time his mission was to use the glue as an adhesive for his torn paper, strip by strip he glued until all the glue was covered. 

His final step was taking a "Batman black" marker and coloring his collage. I was so impressed by the amount of time, and focus Ben took to create his collage. Through this creation process he experienced different mediums, used different muscles groups and really took to a step-by step exploratory creative process. 

As an atelierista I seek to find these moments of discovery and document exploration and learning through art. Ben was able to use the medium of glue to inspire a whole collaging process which captivated him for over twenty minutes.  When kids go though the discovery process on their own they feel accomplished knowing that they too have the ability to create.