My Art Capacities

I enjoyed exploring my art capabilities. It was a nice way to reinforce confidence in things I feel I do well and  consider ways to become stronger in the areas I felt were weak. I marked mostly ones and twos on my page. However, I think that is because I am not prone to thinking in extremes and the wording "no evidence" is difficult for me as I think it is rare for a person to have shown absolutely NO evidence of something.

That being said, some of my weakest areas are exploring marking systems, embracing stillness, utilizing mistakes, and taking action, with taking action probably being my weakest. I am not sure that my understanding of this capability is how it was intended, but to me taking action simply means being brave about moving forward with an idea.  I feel like I can come up with ideas, but then I get nervous and freeze up when it comes time to take the leap into creating art. I worry about making mistakes or feel that I don't know how to create the vision I have in my head. In general, I have a hard time making decisions which can stall me. However, this semester I feel that I have gained a lot more confidence in this part of the art making process. I think in the future it can help me to make a few small samples in order to discover what works best for me. In my last concentration piece I  just jumped right in and let the ideas and product morph as I worked. I think that sometimes I just need to be brave and jump in. I need to be unafraid of making mistakes (this goes back to one of my other weaknesses). I think it might also be useful if I embrace art making activities that have unpredictable outcomes such as dying cloth or burning paper or staining something with foods.

Though there are certainly some areas that I need to work on there area also several areas in which I am very strong. My strongest art capacities are noticing deeply, connecting diverse disciplines, exhibiting empathy, and questioning. Of these I feel that my strongest is exhibiting empathy. This is something that has developed in me a lot over the last 5 years. I was not very empathetic when I was younger. Now I feel that I try to think of most situations from the point of view of others. I try to consider how my actions affect others. This is brought forth in some of my artwork having to do with social justice. However, I feel that this capacity will be most useful in my future teaching. Though sometimes I lack confidence in my art skills and worry about that affecting my teaching I feel assured that I will be a caring, supportive teacher and those qualities are more important in my opinion.