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Saturday, October 18, 2008

Art and Stress

I love teaching art, but there can be a conflict in that there is no time for ME to make art! Ay carumba!! Now, if you love making art, you know that NOT making art can be super stressful. There's a need to release those creative ideas, but more importantly, during the art making process, your brain switches into a neutral zone and stress seems to vanish.

I teach in the Dallas Independent School District, and the last month has been very stressful. Our district was over budget last year and this millions and millions of dollars. The solution reached was to lay off hundreds of people in the school district - administration, teachers, counselors - the fickle finger of fate reaches into unexpected corners. We lost our new counselor this week, Mr. Villa, and though he was with us a short time, we are sorry he fell victim to the RIF.

With everything going on in the national financial scene, my own general anxiety level has been high AND I have felt like I've been living in parallel universes between national and local school district emergencies. Time to make some art. I decided to make the project that my AP Studio classes are doing - a design project using geometric shape to explore pattern and design. Oh, joy! It was fun and healing. I highly recommend it! Check out the link in the title of this post to find out more about do-it-yourself art therapy!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

See, that's the thing. If I'm doing art, and I'm told what to do, it makes me stress. But if I'm at home in a sketchpad, or just doodling... It relieves my stress. That's why Art Class is so difficult to me, I don't like being assigned what to do. I like doing what I want as a free will.
LS
8-1 CA

Anonymous said...

the contrast that you find in this picture is amazing. it reminds me of colored suns with the way thet the rays are coming out of the side.

Anonymous said...

same here! i can only get into making art if it's on my own. for some reason i cannot stand being assigned a certain thing to do. for example, we are recently doing a project on our own, where we can choose the visual aid that we're going to present. this atleast stresses me less and allows me to do things on my own. but on the other hand i love this type of art!!! i just fell in love with the bright colors! this is the types of things i like to draw.

V.V., 2nd,

Anonymous said...

This picture, although refering to stress, actually calms me down more than I expected. The broight colors put me in this trance that just made me feel... warm and clam. I love the idea of the sun surrounding the patterns.

-Madeline Watkins
2nd Period

Anonymous said...

I really agree on the whole "stress" issue, sometimes being told what to express is frustrating. But if there is something I have learned, is to follow my artistic instincts, just like in life. As long as we follow what our heart tells us, and stay on topic, everything else is just there.

-Emma S.
2nd period