Open Ended Art

“All children are artists.
The problem is how to remain an artist once [s]he grows up.”
~Pablo Picasso

The Art Studio at Carmel Mountain Preschool is a magical place. It is an outdoor space that exists in a garden full of palm trees, garden beds, a butterfly garden, and a quiet reading nook where tree stumps are seats for the children. In the Studio, the children are inspired by nature and often explore in nature to learn about color, texture, and patterns. My goal, as the art teacher, is to instill the beauty of process based projects using a variety of materials to create art works that are beautiful and meaningful. This approach to teaching is called “Open Ended Art.” I had the opportunity to interview artist, psychologist, and educator Wren Polansky to share the importance of this philosophy as well as offer ideas to create with your children at home.

A little about Wren:

Wren Polansky MA Counseling Psychology, BA Studio Art. Wren has worked as an artist and educator for various establishments including: the Museum(s) of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, San Diego, La Jolla, and Boulder, Colorado and the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, CA. She has also taught extensively in schools. For roughly two decades she has been practicing and teaching yoga and mindful meditation. She is currently illustrating books for Shambhala Publications, exhibiting work, and planning a course on creativity and joy. She is a mother of two busy little boys. Her teaching experience has reinforced that, indeed, every child is an artist, and so can any adult be if they make art!

What is Open Ended Art?

Open-ended projects emphasize the process not the product. Exploration of the materials is encouraged without the pressure of producing a specified result. In a craft project or product-oriented approach, all of the complete works will look more or less the same, based on adult (or even more blatantly, store-bought) example. If the children were making a tree, for example, they would all have brown trunks and green leaves with red-paper apples. Students in this case are encouraged to follow directions and execute steps in a particular manner. In contrast, a more process-based approach allows children to be in charge of their own work. Each tree would be a different size, shape, color, texture, and with different accents or details. Process-Art in its purest form would discourage any suggestion of an outcome. Instead of being instructed to make a tree, for example, children would not be directed in any way, aside from safe, respectful handling of the materials.

This open-ended approach requires adult caregivers to relinquish control over the process and outcome. The process-based approach empowers kids to make creative decisions. They can more fully take ownership over their art experience and their art object. Doing a little holiday craft to send in the mail to Grandma can be a fun interactive activity once in a while. Consistently manufacturing cutesy objects to appease the adult limits a child’s exposure to the vast possibilities inherent to genuine art making. Lisa Murphy, M Ed and arts educator for Ooey Gooey bluntly states, “Art is not a receipt for childcare!” After all, it’s for them (not us), right?

In the words of Albert Einstein, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives a formal education.” We do not want to disregard a young child’s innate ability to make things from their own heart and mind. One of the most fundamental aspects of being a human is to be curious. It is our curiosity that drives us to learn.

How can we nurture that basic impulse? Piaget would say: bring the spirit of play into the art room. What is play? In the article “The Value of Play” in Psychology Today by Dr. Peter Gray, play is defined as such:

1. Play is self-chosen and self-directed;
2. Play is activity in which means are more valued than ends;
3. Play has structure, or rules, which are not dictated by physical necessity but emanate from the minds of the players;
4. Play is imaginative, non-literal, mentally removed in some way from “real” or “serious” life; and
5. Play involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind.

He reminds us that, “The characteristics of play all have to do with motivation and mental attitude, not with the overt form of the behavior.” We can play in conversation, with no games or toys involved, for example. Piaget succinctly states: “Play is the answer to how anything new comes about” and “play is the work of childhood.” Children must play in order to learn and grow. In a similar vein, Carl Jung states, “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.”. If you’ve ever observed your child freely exploring wilderness, you know this firsthand. It doesn’t take long before they are picking up rocks and sticks and creating images, playthings, and whole worlds! Creating is a basic impulse.

How to Approach Open Ended Art?

Like play, open-ended art practice is not total chaos. We don’t have to be afraid of utter anarchy arising as soon as the materials are off of the shelf! When hosting an art experience, it is best for parents and teachers to be as unobtrusive as possible, so they do not interfere with the children’s work. The adult’s job is to support the creative process for the children. Therefore, it may be most practical to be in the background and distribute additional supplies as needed. Refresh the paint and water bowls. Assist masking tape application if it’s too difficult for the child.

Another option is to make art alongside the kids. When an adult silently explores the art materials on their own, it can be a profound learning opportunity for them too. Like the parenting books say, what you say leaves a much less lasting impression on a developing person than what you do. Kids learn by example. Actively participating in the activity is also the best way for the adult to get inside of the experience of creative play. We were once children, and I believe we can benefit from doing open-ended art just like children.

Why do Open Ended Art?

As I’ve mentioned, open-ended art can be unpredictable, scary, and messy. So why bother? In the process of doing art, kids learn critical thinking, problem solving, and develop social, emotional and physical skills, such as fine and gross motor skills. Exploring other subject areas (including math, science, history, literacy, etc) through art is an engaging and dynamic way for children to internalize or take ownership of their lessons. Art making is a critical avenue of self-expression, offering an alternative to spoken language. When kids make art, they develop their capacity to innovate. I’m hard pressed to think of a more marketable skill! Sir Ken Robinson explains that ironically, it’s our emphasis on academic learning and industrialism that has historically squelched the arts in schools. The landscape is changing. He boldly declares:

Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status…We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence…Our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology; one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we’ve strip-mined the earth for a particular commodity.

We cannot have a healthy diet if all we eat is meat and potatoes. Including open-ended art projects is wholesome nutrition for the human soul. It may be counterculture, but I consider that a good thing. May it be an antidote for an ailing consumer driven society that is constantly seeking external sources of pleasure.

Making art is joyful. It is a mode of connecting authentically to ourselves, each other, and the world. Dig in!

Suggestions for Open Ended Art Projects:

Drawing – Crayons, colored pencils, markers, oil pastels, chalk. BIG sheets of paper are the ideal option for young children’s developing motor skills. Consider having a range of papers available: plentiful inexpensive newsprint for mark-making, colorful construction papers, plus thicker papers such as watercolor or card stock for wet media. Newspaper painted with gesso also makes a cheap and wonderful paint surface!

Clay & Dough – Give kids a sensory experience of molding sculptural material in 3-D. For the physically active child who may not wish to sit and draw, building and sculpting is a fabulous alternative.

Collage & Craft Materials – Offer a variety of colors, textures, shapes and sizes of materials to spice up art making. Again, you do not have to spend a lot of money on brand new designated “art supplies.” Be creative! Pipe cleaners, yarn, pasta, dried beans, beads, buttons, sparkles, pom-poms, felt, wood, paper & fabric scraps. Recycled materials like metal or plastic bottle caps, cardboard boxes, egg containers, spindles, scrap wood, broken tiles, and toilet paper rolls have tons of creative potential. Natural materials like feathers, rocks, sticks, shells, and leaves can be fun to collect with your child. Going for a “treasure hunt” for supplies in the park stimulates the senses and fosters resourcefulness.

Paint & Paint Materials – Non-toxic tempera paint in the primary colors only: Blue (or turquoise), Red (or magenta), and Yellow. Turquoise and magenta tend to make brighter secondary colors. If you only offer primary colors, then kids learn about mixing secondary and tertiary colors on their own. You do not need to buy orange, green, or purple. Ever. Let them discover the new colors they make!

Cut & Paste – Children’s scissors are the ideal choice to use. Also let kids experiment with tearing paper. Try putting glue in cups and have the kids use a brush or Q-tip to apply the glue (rather than squeezing excessive amounts out of the tube!).