The Messy and Intentional Process of Creating Art

“We’re not after perfection; we are after the pursuit of something better,” explains visual art teacher, Dana Len, who alongside colleague Mollie Montgomery has been providing a scaffolded learning process in the pursuit of creative art.

The two arts faculty members teach both Middle School and Upper School students in the Visual Arts. “One of the things we try to do in 5-12th grade is teach them the process,” explains Montgomery. “The students are not all going to come in as excellent painters, but they are going to come in at different levels. They may not have that area of expertise, but we can teach them how to paint and what to look for so that then when they are looking at art in a museum, they understand the process that the artist went through.”

“No matter what the medium or the assignment that we are teaching, it’s a learning process,” says Len. “It’s answering ‘what do you do when you don’t know what to do?’ So, we teach the sketching and the iteration and the reflection, but it’s that main learning process at the core of what we do.” 

By providing the means to create, Len and Montgomery also provide an opportunity for students to take risks. And what they’re finding when they don’t provide numerical grades, is the freedom for students to take more risks in their creations. A few years ago in Middle School, the Arts department switched from providing grades to credit/no credit. 

“What we found in our research is that by taking away the grade, students were able to take more of a risk and be willing to fail and that to us was the world,” says Montgomery. “We’re still giving assessments and we’re still using rubrics to do that, and they still must show up and do the work, but what we often find is that students are more willing to put in the work and dive deeper because that grade isn’t there. That pressure is off.”

The change also has been noticed by parents, who say they see a difference in their students. “What we’ve heard from parents is that their child is learning how to problem-solve and be more patient. There’s value in the process, not just the final product,” says Montgomery.

“Our classes teach resilience, the freedom to create without perfectionistic expectations, confidence, experimentation, taking risks, exploring new ways of thinking, and a growth mindset,” says Len.

The idea of creating a masterpiece can set a young artist up to unrealistic expectations. “I think what we’re trying to do is remove that expectation and allow them to find their voice,” says Montgomery. “Giving them the license to try and fail, that’s where the learning happens. You can squash clay and start over.”