Creativity
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I chatted with James Ramsay, Head of Art, about how creativity can be taught. Feel free to follow the images of art pieces below as James describes them, to add visual context as you listen.
James begins by underlining the enduring value of human creativity in the age of AI. It depicts creativity as a learnable and practicable skill, drawing examples from projects where students painted sounds onto broken instruments. The dialogue finds balance between the necessity of guidance and the importance of individual creativity, culminating with an innovative student project that recreates war scenes and sets them alight for enhanced realism and add more dimensions to the piece.
The discussion goes into art education, the evolution of students' artistic expression and the pitfalls of adhering to a single style. The influence of creativity beyond art, in everyday life and disciplines like architecture and science, is considered, with well-known architects and scientists cited as examples. The podcast concludes by promoting the application of creativity in mundane tasks, inviting listeners to challenge the status quo and break rules. Ok so let's behind the visual tour! James describes Figure 1 at "3:43" of the podcast and the rest of the Figures follow...
Figure 1: Wassily Kandinsky - Composition VII - 1913: a great example of Synaesthetic Art.
Figure 2a: Spray painted instruments based on the colours and sounds that the students visualise emitting from them.
Figure 2b: The students then composed Music based on the instruments and colours and then went full circle by making 2D boards that went up on the Art department staircase.
Figure 3: How can you take David Levinthal's art a step further? By recreating it, setting it on fire, photographing it, and then creating a painting over the burnt remains, of course.
Figure 4: A typical GCSE assessment grid showing criteria and objectives for learning.
Figure 5: Paperclip challenge - try it yourself - it can be tricky. 60secs, the paperclip can be any size and can be made from any material - how many things can it be used for, made into, repurposed as?
Figure 6a: Hokusai - Great Wave of Kanagawa - 1831
Figure 6B: Some student responses to the ‘Great Wave.’ The waves are sculpted from Buff Clay, fired, glazed and fired again. An involving process but one they enjoy.
Figure 7a: Art from Caravaggio and Lucian Freud
Figure 7b: Josh’s Oil portrait blending the light and dark of Caravaggio and the painterly texture of Freud
Figure 8a: What started as a very abstract exercise gradually resolved itself into something far more carefully formed.
Figure 8b: Dan was looking for tangible shapes in and amongst a mass of random, formless tangles and he managed to push the painting in a different direction.
Firgure 8c: The finished product is impressive but it still holds traces and elements of it’s former self.
Figure 8d: The finished product is impressive but it still holds traces and elements of it’s former self. He followed this up with a drypoint print above. This is a real journey of exploration.
Figure 9: "Inspired by remarkable architects like Zaha Hadid and Thomas Heatherwick, we can see how cutting-edge structures seem to defy gravity. Such feats can only be achieved through an inherently creative mind, mirroring the creative processes we encourage in our students. Taking cues from the natural world or mundane objects - a seed pod, or even a crumpled piece of paper like Frank Gehry - they challenge conventions and ask, 'Why can't this be a building?'" James Ramsay.