Learning – Page 8 – The Consulting Artist

Instrumental Learning

Yesterday evening Keira and a load more kids from four local schools put on a concert called Stringfest. All the schools in our borough (Sutton) are invited to take part in a year of learning either the violin or cello. There were lots of nerves and excitement beforehand, and you could see plenty of little hands shaking. The concert was great fun, a super mix of music, with the schools and teachers and kids interchanging, encouraging, flourishing and enjoying themselves. As is the role of an enthusiastic audience of parents and grandparents, we cheered the roof off.

One of the teachers who was facilitating the concert spoke about five reasons why it’s great to learn to play an instrument. These things struck a chord with me (ouch!) and I would like to share them with you:

5 Reasons why it’s great to learn to play an instrument

It makes you smarter
It’s enjoyable
It aids concentration and focus
Creates self discipline
Helps you appreciate the challenge of performance

These things all manifested themselves through the evening, and there were certainly no little hands shaking nervously once the concert began to unfold.

Keira was allowed to take the violin home and she showed me how to play it. Keira is a much better violinist than me, and with her help I managed to extract a few notes, and yes, a few screeches too.

Keira is a Punk Rocker

A week is a long time in parenthood. Last Saturday Carole and I and a packed house watched Keira and her fellow dance school pupils put on a great show. The school puts on a show only once every three years and boy do they prepare well. As a result, the performances were compelling. A mix of dance genres: ballet, tap, modern, street and musical theatre were shared with us. Graceful and entertaining.

This weekend I find out that Keira has a new drumming project. Her teacher has asked her to learn the classic Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, by punk trailblazers The Ramones. I love the way kids can flip and flop to learn all manner of different things, and seeing this in Keira is a constant reminder to me that experimental learning and doing is useful and fun.

In the summer of 2011 I was fortunate to meet Arturo Vega, artist and muse to The Ramones, and by way of a vaguely interesting coincidence, back in the early 80’s me and a bunch of journo mates recorded a version of this song as a birthday gift for the eminent photographer Tom Sheehan. It was unspeakably rude and it made number three in the Melody Maker playlist the week after we handed it to Tom (via everyone in the press office of course). And now, courtesy of my daughter and her drum teacher, It’s 1977 again – in a good way.

While I leave you to think about the new stuff you’re going to learn this week, here are The Ramones at their 1977 best. 1234……

Photo credit

Leap Day Learning

Wow! Leap day came and went in a blur of useful fun. Our numbers ebbed and flowed a little through the day, and that movement combined with the choice of venue, those who came along, the weather, the whole mix, really inspired and contributed to a great day.

To remind you – the day was loosely framed around connections between art and business, and being Leap Day, taking a leap into the unknown. Our time together started with a vigorous conversation around psychometric tests, fuelled by my recent MBTWhy? blog post. I’d not expected this and the conversation and debate flowed for about an hour before we drew our attention to matters a little more artistic.

Poetry

Vandy found a super poem hanging on the wall of the Perse School in Cambridge, which we shared to help set the scene:

See what I found

Some new corners of myself

Hiding away, tucked out of sight,

Untapped, untried, I found them

While reaching out to others.

I wonder how much more of me

There is to discover

– Anon

Drawing

From there we tried our hand at drawing. Jonathan asked us all to draw in pencil for two minutes. We then shared our drawing with our immediate neighbour who asked non judgmental questions about the drawing for a minute. We reversed roles for a further minute and then were invited to either enhance the drawing, or draw again. How would the brief, non judgmental coaching we had given each other affect our work?

My intention was to try and recreate a realistic impression of a pencil, at a much larger scale. I think these two before and after shots show how powerfully and quickly someone can improve after some non judgmental questioning of their work.

Painting

Vandy gave us a great introductory lesson in water colours. We all had a play and tried our hand at painting a grape.

I think my attempt is OK – it looks a bit bruised! And I’ve had another play with the techniques we learned which you can view here if you would like.

Photography

Jon Bartlett brought a camera and took some great pics. I pinched an element of one of his photos for the picture at the start of this post and you can see the whole album here. Jon’s photos are well worth a look and they convey a sense of the warmth and inclusion we cocreated on the day.

Writing

Since the day a number of people have written about it. You can read Vandy’s excellent summary here. David Goddin wrote a thought provoking piece here, and Jon captured an unexpected and special moment here.

I think we covered a useful spectrum of art based activities on the day. We certainly had a lot of useful fun, and I can see lots of ways in which elements of the day would fit very well into learning in the workplace. In the aftermath people who attended described the day with words like ‘awesome’ ‘friendly’ ‘real conversations’ ‘informal and creative’ ‘welcome’ ‘inclusion’ ‘fed the soul’.

We’re planning to run some more of these sessions sometime over the Summer. I’ll keep you posted. Meantime I’m interested to know what you think of this concept, and whether or not you think there’s a place for art and business to collaborate better?