Friday, November 18, 2011

Flow


I’ve just finished up my 7 session “Exploring Surface Design” course. I had a really nice, hardworking group this semester…a real pleasure. The session before this last one, I brought in gelatin plates so the students could do some monoprints. I usually do this for the final class and it has been very successful. Students have really taken a “playful” approach and made some wonderful prints.

This time was amazing to me. It was as if the work flowed out of people. Print after incredible print. And each series so different, you could “hear” the voice of each particular student. To me the prints were like Haiku…beautiful, complete poems. One student began to place two prints next to one another..I read them as pages from a book. This was so very close to a spiritual experience. It was as if each student had found her “voice”.

We talked about the experience in the final class this week. I was not the only one who felt this way. It was if the whole class had been in synch. It was the kind of session every teacher dreams about!

My students have encouraged me to teach gelatin monoprinting as a separate workshop. This is something I want to pursue. I believe it could be a way to open up others to listening to their own voices, to connecting to some wonderful, natural, creative “flow”.

The photos below are a sampling of monoprints from that very special class.


Betty Ford
Janice Knausenberger
Janice Knausenberger
Mary Ellen Campbell
Mary Ellen Campbell

Mary Ellen Campbell


2 comments:

  1. Pretty cool! Can't wait to try gelatin tomorrow in class.

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  2. I'm looking forward to seeing what "flows" out of tomorrow night's class...but first I have to find more gelatin! Last Saturday, I bought the last 2 boxes from my Giant for my G Street class...who would believe there would be a "run" on gelatin!

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