Early Childhood
Working with materials Artistic development has its roots in earliest infancy as babies explore their worlds with newly empowered bodies and senses. Joyful explorations of materials that can be safely mouthed, handled, batted, pummeled, squashed, pushed and pulled are the key. With encouragement, such explorations continue through infancy and into the years of toddlerhood. Body actions become increasingly refined, sensory responses become richer and more differentiated and emotional responses expand in depth and reach. As physical, sensory and emotional responses interweave through exploratory play, infants begin to construct and expand their first artistic repertoires. Through free flowing acts of investigation they discover the wide range of properties and potentials of the materials they take such pleasure in engaging with. Over time, along with continuing exploration, artistic repertoires accommodate increasingly complex patterns of controlled gestures as lines, patches of color, surfaces, blocks and parts are positioned in varieties of organized two and three dimensional relationships such as enclosures, pile-ups and complex designs, becoming works of creative expression affording intense pleasure to their makers.
This very early learning constitutes the foundational phase in very young children’s artistic development, for here they are constructing basic repertoires of actions with materials and integrating responses to the configurations they form within materials. It is, thus, this repertoire that soon offers to the imagination the possibility of expression and then dialogue with the world of others. For as they move into toddlerhood many children will begin to attach expressive meanings of great variety to the outcomes of their actions and organizations with materials. Often idiosyncratic and changeable, early expressive naming soon merges into complex story telling as acts of discovery in materials call into play experiences of the real and fantasy worlds of childhood. Such works do not yet refer to the visual characteristics and details of things rather they refer to the active and emotional experiences that color typical narratives. It is not uncommon for early narratives to have verbal, musical and gestural accompaniments as part of their overall expression. Over time, however, visual details such as faces, patterns of clothing, fur or scales on animals and such like begin to appear in aspects of toddlers work as the demands of narrative become more explicit and call for specific attention. If, in the end, all serious artistry comes from our bodily experiences with the world, early childhood is where our artistic journeys begin, and a prime space for nurturing meaningful, grounded and daring experiences that will impact individual lives and, throught them, the community and the world.
It is important to recognize that the repertoire building of this time in development is characterized by the interweaving of a number of phases which emerge from on-going play with two and threedimensional materials. In later works, for example, we will see controlled organizations emerging from exploratory action, and visual details embedded within configurations that carry emotional and sensory significance. Very young children should not be forced to make representational art before they are ready; this undermines and often truncates development. Rather they need support and a variety of interesting materials to explore, and encouraging adults who engage with them in dialogues about their works. A simple “tell me about your work� will promote wonderful ruminations that will give parents and teachers clues about children’s thinking and interests from which they can calibrate their own responses to help and inspire the richness of creative action with which very young children are so enthusiastically endowed.
Learning about the work of others While it is important to offer very young children opportunities to learn through play with physical materials, it is also important to engage them regularly with the art works of others. Toddlers and pre schoolers love to see art work made by grown-ups and if encouraged are well able to gather in small groups to contemplate such works quietly and then participate in discussion and critique of what they have experienced. Very young children are naturally curious and open to engaging with and investigating all sorts of artistic expression whether in digital form in their classrooms or in actuality in a gallery or museum. Indeed, very young children are often more open and willing to struggle with difficult art than are many adults and with careful exposure come to understand that the world of art can be richly various. If well guided such experiences can be taken back into classrooms for more on-going discussion and even comparing and contrasting with other works the children have seen. They can also become
starting points for personal or group interpretations in creating works such as murals or community sculptures, or can provide models for the youngsters’ own exhibitions. Here, discussion and dialogue about what works to choose and why, how to hang or display works for others to admire, actively engage children in important curatorial decisions that provide rich and important learning opportunities. In addition, individual children can take turns in assuming the role of tour guide playing a central role in presenting and interpreting both their work and that of others. Activities such as these not only introduce very young children to the worlds of culture that surround them but also ground them as individuals within those cultures helping them to understand their contributions to them. Moreover, visiting and curating exhibitions can become venues for a great deal of social learning in which children acquire insight into the ideas and practices of others learning to be knowledgeable about and respectful of differences. Children lean that works of art speak in many voices, they also speak across time and space about the thoughts, feelings and ideas of others and what they considered important.
Teachers College in New York, New York Engage with some of the most renowned and exciting practitioners, philosophers, psychologists, educators and researchers in the arts, cultural studies, and humanities anywhere in the world. Program: • Five degree programs: MA, MA with Teacher Certification, Ed.M., Ed.D., and the Ed.D. in the College Teaching of Art • Specializations in: Museum Education, Community Arts, Studio Practice and Leadership • A summer intensive MA • International experiences overseas Opportunities for… • Serious scholarship and intellectual debate • Art practice and research • Individually designed independent study projects • Engagement with schools in diverse neighborhoods • Internships in museums • Professional employment in arts venues • Macy Gallery Art Exhibitions • Exciting conversations across cultures We are… A community of faculty and students: artists, teachers, museum educators, art historians, thinkers, movers and doers who come together to address critical issues of our time.
Judith M. Burton, Director 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027 Tel: (212) 678-3360 • www.tc.edu/a%26ah/ArtEd
“It’s a frog, with eyes.”