Reflecting on the last few days, my ‘Art Research Lab With Kat For Women – Oslo’, which form part of my own art practice and my current inquiry into feminine energy and the female psyche, and the art workshops I was invited to run for children by Sjøholmen Kunst og Kulturhus (sponsored by DNB Sparebankstiftelsen).
I am aware that many talk of ‘holding space’ and of ‘creating space’ for others. This is not my focus nor is it what I do.
I invite others to join me in my space
For me being an artist is a state of being. This demands that I am fully present within myself in the here and now. Free of expectation, judgement, or the need to control. Curious. Inquisitive. Engaged. This is the space from where I create. It is the space I invite people to enter.
“I really enjoyed taking part in this creative inquiry of yours. To participate in this art lab felt like a divine orchestration, as I pay attention to the dynamics between the masculine and the feminine within myself out of curiosity and with the intention of creating space for both and balancing them better”
I work in a similar way with children.
On Tuesday this week I was at Sjøholmen, working with 40 school children aged 7, followed by 20 nursery school children aged 4 & 5. The day could have easily descended into chaos, however it did not. It was remarkably peaceful.
I am not trying to teach these children how to draw or how to be an artist - they already know how instinctively. I am inviting them into my space - guiding them in ways of tapping into their inherent creativity, bringing them into a state of flow.
“When you are in flow, you are completely focused on what you are doing. All your attention is directed to the present. Time disappears and a child in this state feels absolute satisfaction and joy”
I do not give instructions – I invite. The children are free to join me or not. Free to draw as they wish or not. While I am meeting them as an artist – a fellow human being – I am also aware that as an adult there is an inherent imbalance of power between us. I do not assert that power. I do not try to control them. I simply meet the children as they are and allow them to be.
Missing the point, occasionally a well-meaning teacher may start disrupting the flow by asking questions - or worse - issuing their own instructions, telling the children where to sit, how to sit, to ‘draw properly’, to fill all the paper before taking a new sheet …
My response to this is ‘let them be’ (and if they can’t, my next response would be to ask their teacher to leave).
Although it takes some longer than others to get there, I have not yet had a teacher decline my invitation to join their pupils in the activities. It’s such a beautiful thing to witness, a teacher sitting on the floor among their pupils, everyone in flow, creating and expressing together - in silence, not talking - smiling.