Hi Graham

  I was interested in your comment about whether a child's first words would 
be celebrated as creative or the child themselves. I would suggest that it 
would be the child, perhaps similar to the focus on the ARTIST'S 
skill/discipline/spontaneity in Japanese and Chinese art and calligraphy The 
work being very much an individual expression and rated by looking at the 
resultant expression - to my knowledge not by comparison with others.. Also 
the British Library sound archive project Artists Lives sets about to fill 
in the gaps left by largely ignoring the artist ( well up to Brit art 
anyway) so that in future people will have not only the visual 
represenations but also their context, through tapes recording the artists' 
experience of life.

  Running a big draw event last year I had many drawings from children which 
were then exhibited in the local library. People looking at the drawings 
seemed to enjoy the work so much more when it was accompanied by labels eg 
Harriet Age 7, George Age 5- importance of information about the drawer 
enhancing the viewing experience perhaps.


  Regarding the criteria used to judge whether a drawing is creative- is 
this to do with the drawer's unique filter that visual info has gone through 
before being offered back into the public domain? going back to the idea of 
personal expression.

  val stephenson


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Graham A. Brown" <[log in to unmask]>
  To: "Val Stephenson" <[log in to unmask]>
  Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2005 8:14 PM
  Subject: Re: Are all visual rerspesentations 'art'?


  HI Maulfry

  I have been working on a project that is looking at children's drawing
  not as art but as language. In this way I have been able to eliminate
  the idea of art or aesthetics  out of my consideration at this time.

  • Because I come from a graphic design background not academic I have
  always thought of all visual representation as art. Now I have refined
  my thinking of art as being making something special, special as
  defined by the creators. The challenge certainly is to develop more
  effective ways of reading child's marks and hearing the child's voice.
  The term art, narrows, and  restricts our thinking.  As long as we only
  see the marks as art, we will miss an opportunity to encourage the full
  development of the child.

  • If I were to use the phrases " to bring about deliberately or to make
  special"  I would then say all visual representation is drawing and
  therefor art or special. To bring about deliberately, is how I would
  define the drawing process in children or adult. Is a individual
  drawing being labelled creative in relationship to how that one
  individual drew it or is it compared with an other drawing by an other
  individual or group. When a child specks its first word do we call the
  child or that word creative?

  Graham A Brown,
  Executive Producer
  netcoMedia Interactive
  Vancouver       BC
  Canada  V6g 1L9

  On 6-Feb-05, at 5:40 AM, Maulfry Worthington wrote:

  >
  > Dear Drawing Research members,
  >
  > I am currently looking at the relationship between ways in which
  > society and education categorises childrens marks and drawing (e.g.,
  > 'art', science, mathematics, music, writing). Since young children do
  > not percieve drawing in terms of 'subjects' we believe the un-natural
  > boundaries between such categories as 'art', and visual representation
  > in other areas of their thinking present false dichotomies. Such
  > boundaries surely were more fluid in the Renaissance? Last year I
  > attended the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and was particularly
  > struck by the gallery with drawings by non- artisits - by surgeons,
  > scientists, choreographers, architects, musicians and so on.
  >
  > My questions at the moment are:
  >       •     'Is all visual representation drawing - and if it is, is it 
also
  > 'art'?
  >       •      If visual representations can be viewed as belonging to 
both art
  > and to other disciplines, then surely this implies a need for
  > educators and society to value the whole range of marks and drawing
  > young children make, whether for 'art' or not?
  >       •     What criteria should we use to define the drawing process - 
and
  > also to define an individual drawing - as 'creative'?
  > Maulfry
  >