conversations on the fringes of art + education (a found poem)

an intimate wayof getting to know someonethe logicin our pairing apparentartists outsidersparty-crashers gate-smashers play actorswatching waiting lookingfilmingdoing

when we don’t know what we are doingwe can figure it out togetherwithout disciplinary borders and boundarieswe’re all over the placethe questions we haveare of everything

we are comfortablenot knowing and forging ahead regardlessinto the chaos the messiness the making

it is everything actuallyon the slymostly awkward

who knew there was a right way to hold a brush?to paint a drawing?we celebrate the small burststhe love of figuring it outa life’s work in need of a logo, some T-shirtssome poetrywe can make them togetherif we stay right hereclear a space, build an easeltwo

grids and chaos painted into counterpointsexplosivemethodical and organized and not me

alwaysalways tellingalways in excess,always saving our livesalways hearing our truths

we can see clear overlaps, connectionsno boundaries, no borders

conversationsback and forthsharingoutsideand reaching in

The poem is culled from our online discussions about ourselves, our lives, our careers, our beliefs, and even our art. These discussions were wide-ranging: How many kids do you have? How old are they? How did you become an artist? What art do you do? What do you teach?

We discussed our backgrounds. Mindi taught high school English. Ruth Nicole has her PhD in political science. We have never been officially certified as art teachers. We do not have degrees in art. We do not teach in art or art education departments. However, the two of us consider ourselves artists. We have claimed that title for ourselves, without the formal validation or degrees or credentials. We do very different work, but we have important similarities. We resonate. We operate on the fringes of multiple fields we love, in the places where disciplines overlap and blur. We create. We educate. We see the possibilities this combination can activate—for ourselves and our students.

Our own arts education and arts experiences happen primarily in community arts or education contexts. We work with others to use the processes of creativity and art making as powerful strategies for meaning-making, expression, and communication. We don’t believe in hard disciplinary boundaries. We both confess we don’t always know what we are doing when we are making art—that we often lack the formalized content knowledge and skills of trained professionals. But we are comfortable with this not knowing, with stepping into these spaces of possibilities and potential. We are comfortable with the chaos and uncertainty. And we are often amazed at what results from this attitude and approach, with ourselves and with our students. We learn so much from our own art making, and these lessons enrich our scholarship and teaching and our lives.

We never have enough time to make our own art. Or enough space. Or enough expertise. But we do it anyway. We squeeze it into the small spaces, into the fleeting moments, into the fabric of our daily lives in little ways. We think about art in all its many manifestations. We wonder how we can bring art into our teaching more often, and into our living.

Our conversations highlighted many of the things we knew about our own struggles with retaining an active, consistent, meaningful studio arts practice. Importantly, the conversations revealed how common these struggles are. This awareness is comforting and reassuring. We are in this together, or at least we are on similar paths, heading in similar directions.

We have no clear resolutions or outcomes from these conversations, other than the poem above. We do have a sense of camaraderie, of adventure, and of curiosity. We have a connection. We hope these conversations and commonalities stimulate our thinking and our work. We hope they reaffirm our own creative efforts, as well as our scholarly ones. We hope to keep making. To keep sharing. To keep...