Art can be defined and interpreted in a myriad of ways, but in essence, making art often allows the creative individual to explore what it means to live in the world right now, today (Biesta, 2017). For some, art can be the catalyst for a more reflective life experience. Art is historically a documentation of our experiences of daily life, as a culture. Students can and should participate in this sharing of culture. By participating in this open-endedness and understanding the benefits of doing so, students can be reflective and yet connect to their community. By understanding how to create a dialogue with the world around us, students can have more colorful and rewarding daily experiences. What is worth seeing? What, from our lived experience, is worth bringing back under the lens of art education? These questions imply that art education has the potential to go far beyond decoration and can be a place for students to be reflective and inquisitive about their experiences. Biesta discusses how education through artistic investigation is effective. Biesta so eloquently states that, “...arousing in another human being the desire for wanting to exist in the world as subject, that is, ...wanting to exist in the world in a ‘Grown-up’ way” (Biesta, 2017). If we give students the tools to reflect on their life experiences in school, perhaps we can embrace living in the “world as subject.” This may differ from an arts curriculum that is guided by the teacher’s choices. There are social and emotional benefits to encouraging an art curriculum to influenced and inspired student’s identity through choice in subject matter, to pave the way for them to be reflective and communicative about who they are and how they exist in the world.

Students can use artmaking and art-making environments to gain a sense of identity (Gilbert, 2019). Gilbert speaks about the Reggio Emilia approach and how teachers can provide the supervision, guidance, and studio environment to help children reap the benefits of an autonomous learning environment with enriching, open-ended opportunities when creating artwork (Gilbert, 2019). These ideas are important when considering the ways in which the child is applying their own interpretations from visual culture. The purpose of this refers to the idea that students can and should be applying their life experiences. With a more open-ended approach, the teacher is no longer insisting the student achieve aesthetic perfection. Instead, the teacher is guiding the student through the artistic processes, is proctoring the studio environment, and is simultaneously leaving room for the child to use the artistic processes to visualize and express their personal ideas. If the child is circumscribed by a teacher-oriented learning environment, their sense of self-identity in the art room will be hampered. By following a more open-ended approach, we can better understand the ways in which students are reflecting on their own life experiences through artmaking. This will allow the child to be introspective and make personal decisions to communicate more effectively. 

Referencing Daily Life

In what ways did students reference daily life or identity? The data was sorted into three categories, which were labeled after observing the data, to address this question. Category 1 is “The Observable World,” which includes artwork which references a particular place or person that the student has indicated exists in real life. Artwork was sorted into this category only if the student indicated the personal relevancy in their submission. Category 2 is “Imaginative Ideas,” which includes artwork that was derived from the students’ imagination or references a character or idea from popular culture. Category 3 is “Continued Material Studies,” which is any artwork that is abstract without a verbal or written documentation noting its relevancy to reality or identity. 

Within the “Observable World” category, students depicted elements of their hobbies (such as baseball, softball, hockey, and dance) as well as the room or objects around them. Artwork that included images of the student’s immediate surroundings referenced their daily life, of things they regularly encountered. Students also depicted self-portraits, as well as trophies which referred to a personal achievement as well as their accomplishments outside of school. There were also generic landscapes in the data, for example, a tree sitting on top of green grass and a blue sky. Because these pieces of data do not indicate a particular specific place in my teacher notes or the student responses, they were not included in this category. However, landscapes can be a relatable and accessible idea with which to prompt students. Not surprisingly, landscapes were not uncommon. This was an idea that was repeated throughout many different classes, which indicates that the students were drawn to this idea, perhaps for its relatability. Although these artworks were not included in this category of my study, some still potentially reference to daily life or experience, but those which were not indicated as such were left out of the category.

Within the “Imaginative Ideas” category, two sub-categories emerged. Sub-category 1 is entitled “Student generated characters.” This sub-category includes artwork that references an imaginative character such as an animal, creature, or person, that the student invented. One outstanding example includes a drawing of a cartoon bunny holding a pride flag with the letters “LGBTQ” above the bunny. This drawing refers to the student’s sexuality as indicated during his submission of the artwork. There were other examples of students using stylized animals to express an idea about themselves. One student drew such a horse with a pattern detail on top. Upon doing so, she shared her love for horses and her joy in horseback riding. Students seemed to use imaginative characters to either explore the material with a particular direction, or as the vehicle to express deeper ideas about themselves, such as being a part of the LGBTQ community. 

Within sub-category 2, “Popular Culture References,” was artwork that showed characters from the games “Among Us” and “Minecraft.” According to my teacher notes, students were eager to converse about their planned creations since these games are currently popular. Students were observed having topical discussions about the ideas which were being explored in their artwork. 

The final category is “Continued Material Studies,” included an array of artworks with no indication of personal relevancy beyond the physical exploration of the material. Although students were not depicting subjective, non-abstract ideas in this category, they were documenting their fluency with the material, in most cases, by continuing to explore the physicality of the material. Many of the artworks in this category were watercolor paintings. The data reveals that during the watercolor lesson, students expressed excitement with one another when they were able to achieve demonstrated techniques. More specifically, this was noted with techniques that took multiple attempts for success like the wet-on-wet technique or the crayon resist technique. Once able to achieve the technique, shared with peers at their table and helped guided others to be successful as well. These examples from the data hold importance since many students might otherwise be focused on themselves and their own interests in the other category examples. The continued material studies, however, prompted students to overcome frustration and continue to connect with peers to achieve success. 

Even though students were provided with open-ended prompts, many still chose to incorporate personal ideas, rather than exploring mores generic topics. Even in the artworks that can be observed as non-personal, there is supplemental data, my teacher notes, which reveals that students continued to use their artwork to communicate and connect with one another. This supports Biesta’s idea of allowing the student to exist in the world “as subject,” by using art to reflect on their personal ideas and identity in the world, as well as to connect with others in the context of the art classroom (Biesta, 2017). Why use art to communicate and connect?