The process from nature walk to artist research to moodboards to creative idea sketching to planning, designing, constructing, decorating, refining, and presenting the Design Pieces was a wonderful example of creative thinking at work. It is not always linear and following a straight path. It demands that you reflect on what is working and make changes where things are not working; it also demands the time and space to try and fail and try again.
The final products were so interesting to see in their variety as well as their similar themes. But this was not a project that tested how skilled an artist you were; instead, it asked you to delve into the creative process and learn a little about how you work and how you think.
One thing that stood out was the way many of us used divergent thinking in our work, taking things that are different from one another and connecting them. Here are four examples: Sofia combined the ideas of "North" and "South," Niamh combined life and death, Betty combined the simplicity of a plain background with a pop of color, Flora combined the notion of "nature" and "the soul."
But all of the examples had a unique process and interesting final products, and this project allowed us to self-reflect and offer constructive critique of others' work too. These skills are applicable to all kinds of disciplines, even academic work, not just artistic process, and we will practice them again in the theater unit that we will explore next.
Last thoughts about process that are food for thought in bridging the previous unit with the next one -- musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson has 5 questions we can ask about our creative pieces when working on them in order to think about the next steps:
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