New insight into children's artistic development

February 06, 2007

The 2nd International Art in Early Childhood Conference opened at the University of New England today with a keynote address that showed how it was possible to replace vague generalisations about the value – and the process – of art education with specific details.

Professor Anna Kindler opened her address to an audience of more than 120 delegates from 13 countries by asking: "Exactly what are the children learning through art activities?"

She began her answer by presenting a model of artistic development that emphasised the complex, dynamic interaction between the artistically developing individual, the community of artists and art experts, and the "domain" of art itself. "Artistic development within this ever-changing system is in a constant state of flux," she said.

Professor Kindler (pictured here), an internationally renowned art educator and researcher from the University of British Columbia in Canada, went on to discuss two aspects of artistic development that her research suggested were of universal importance within this complex system: "visual sensitivity" and "technical proficiency".

"The development of visual sensitivity does not have to be connected to drawing and painting," she explained. "It can be achieved by helping children to make visual discoveries – for example, the different shades of green they might see in a 'nature walk'."

"We should also encourage children to reinterpret visual experience," she continued. "An example of this might be finding the shapes of creatures such as dragons and birds in the clouds."

As for technical proficiency, she said it was important for children to "learn about the medium itself". She spoke about her experiences with young children modelling with real clay (not brightly-coloured toy substitutes). She said that, when presented with a large amount of clay (to avoid the usual fixation on moulding "snakes" and "pancakes") and simple support structures, children quickly learnt about the qualities of clay, and the limitations of the medium due to a range of factors including its weight. "They were not discouraged by things falling apart," she added.

"In my experience, children love clay," Professor Kindler said. "By working in this medium they learn that making art can take a long time – that artists often have to come back to their work again and again. Children are happy to return to work on their sculptures."

The conference, organised by Dr Margaret Brooks from UNE and Rosemary Richards from Massey University in New Zealand, continues until Thursday 8 February.

An afternoon of public events in UNE's Education Building on the afternoon of Wednesday 7 February begins at 1.30 pm with a talk by Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM. Dr Piscitelli is the Chair of the National Review of Visual Education as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Queensland Museum and a Director of the Collections Council of Australia. Her talk will be titled "The new art gallery audience: Young children as critics, connoisseurs, creators, consumers and cultural citizens". It will be in Lecture Room 111.

Then, from 3 pm, there will be three events running in parallel. One of them - in Room 111 - will be a presentation by Dr Brooks and the artist Christine McMillan on the practical involvement of young children in the work of artists and art museums. The others will be an illustrated talk about children's art works from around the world by Trish Amichi from the Amichi Gallery in Sydney (Room 133), and a workshop (limited to 25 participants) on digital art for children (Computer Lab).

With delegates and expressions of interest from 22 countries on five continents, the conference will launch a Web-based International Art in Early Childhood Association, as well as an electronic Art in Early Childhood Research Journal.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Anna Kindler displayed here expands to include Dr Margaret Brooks (left) and Rosemary Richards.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at February 6, 2007 04:36 PM