Bob Ross and the Art Anxiety Battle

 Once a week I teach an art/art history workshop for high school. I have no idea how I ended up doing it. I am neither an art teacher or a proper artist, so it makes for a bit of an adventure. 

 At the beginning of each class I give a little introduction to an artist from the period we are studying. After doing that a few weeks ago I played a Bob Ross episode. My high schoolers are having a hard time remembering to do their background before their foreground. I was hoping that I could use Bob Ross to help remind them. So after watching a bit of it I muted it and let it play in the background. 

This most recent class my helper couldn’t make it so I was all alone with the high schoolers. I had to run out of the room for a moment so I played the history clip I chose for them before leaving. (Why should I talk when I can have a guy with a fancy accent, running around France do it for me). 

 When I came back into the room I asked them a few questions about it. No one had really paid any attention (not that I was surprised, it’s high school). Instead they were asking me to play Bob Ross again. So I reiterated the top points quickly (the workshop is only an hour long after all), and popped in the Bob Ross DVD. 

I sat on a windowsill and sipped my ice tea and watched them watch Bob Ross between brush strokes. Their expressions and commentary on Bob Ross was the best thing. A lot of them really seem to enjoy him. This time I didn’t mute him and one of the girls told me that his voice is really soothing and helps her to relax. 

 That day, my kids were actually excited to paint. Most of the kids in the workshop have never had a real art class before. My workshop is just a little footnote added into this academic based set of classes. Most of these kids are basically ingrained left brainers. They are very type A and very black and white. They feel they don’t do well at art, so it freaks them out. I have been trying to drill into them that art is a learned skill and just like learning anything else new, they aren’t going to start off perfect. This class is such a chore for a lot of them. Yet this time they were actually itching to paint. It was fantastic.

I think some progress towards not fearing art has been made. I partially blame Bob Ross for being an exceptionally welcomed distraction and for showing us that you can be relaxed while painting.  

(I also let two of my kids finger paint near the end of class. Finger painting isn’t scary at all)

Knots in the Works

So quick story. I use to spend a lot of my time hanging out at the daycare my mom use to work at. And I loved it. The kids had so much energy and were always so eager to talk with me. I try not to, but I miss it an awful lot. Anyway, I started to learn how to knit and crochet and as I was learning I would bring a project with me and work on it during homework time. The kids were very interested in it (possibly because it wasn’t homework).

One time I was knitting a scarf and there was one girl left at the daycare, her mom and called and was running late because of traffic. So while we waited I showed her how to do a knit stitch on my scarf. By the time her mom had come she had found a rhythm and was doing very well. After that anytime one of the kids would ask I would show them how to do it. Right in the middle of my project.

  

 I never really thought about it much, until just now. I don’t see most of those kids any more, but I do babysit one of them and the other day we were watching a movie. In the middle of it I pulled out my crochet and started working on it. About eight rows in the kid noticed what I was doing and asked if he could try it. I had some doubts and in my mind the odds were stacked against him. I was using a smaller hook than normal and old white yarn in a dimly lit room. Also there was the fact that his left hand was in a cast. I was doing just a single crochet and I only showed him that much. He made a few mistakes at first, but caught on quickly. He was much better at finding the next place to start a stitch and recognizing when he put it in the wrong place than I was when I started. I even left him alone for a while and when I came back he had several perfect stitches done all by himself. Anyway enough of me bragging about the awesome kids I know. That isn’t the point.

 I am always excited to show the kids how to do a project. I would interrupt a pattern in a scarf just to do it. You probably know what it feels like to finish a project and feeling good about it, only to discover that you’ve made a mistake. Yet for some reason I never cared about the kids making mistakes in my work. It would be ridiculous for me to expect that some one who never held knitting needles before wouldn’t make a mistake. I also never expected there to be a later with these kids.

 At daycare sometimes we only had a kid on certain days or only on testing or only for a few weeks. I didn’t have time to get fresh yarn and tools. So if they showed interest I would put them in right in the middle of my project. And there would be mistakes, but my goodness how I loved those mistakes. It was someone else’s work tired up in my own. It was interest, learning, and bonding. And those kids didn’t have too much trouble with it, they were eager and learned fast.

  

 When I knit or crochet it is usually with the intent to sell whatever I’m making and it always saddened me a bit that the bump in my crochet and the minor inconsistencies in my knit pattern would never be valued by any one in the same light that I valued it in. People who don’t know how to knit or crochet will probably never notice those mistakes and someone who does would not be impressed.

It got me wondering though. Are there knots in our lives that we’re misinterpreting? Are we missing moments to make knots in? Everyone makes mistakes, but how are we interpreting them? They could have more value than we realize.