Galleries

Creativity has always been my superpower, as a child and into adulthood. Throughout my experience in education, I’ve struggled to learn through the traditional reading and writing format. Discovering the arts (visual art, music, dance, and drama, etc.) gave me a voice, healed my anxiety-driven mentality, provided me with the knowledge needed to succeed in life, and has become my way of making long-lasting friendships. Growing up, however, art education was denied as a beneficial use of time and was generalized as a hobby, by teachers, constituents, and family members. Even worst, my experience today in academia doesn’t fully accommodate my visual learning mechanisms. Through my research, I strive to prove these generalizations false. Creatives spaces can empower children and it should be encouraged at the utmost in childhood development even if a child isn’t inspiring to be an artist. While there is a privilege behind affording a creative space and being recognized as creative, there is also flexibility to change our perceptions of creative practices and inspire children and adults to create freely.

Children’s literature has evidently supported the need for creativity and artistic spaces. Unlike a normal research essay, I took a backward approach, creating the art before researching and deciding my thesis. Inspired by characters of 4 children and adolescent novels who engage in creativity, I challenged myself to recreate creative spaces in my own life. I noted how the characters use their artistic moments as a space to communicate, a space to explore, a space to meditate, and a space to build relationships. Representing each novel, I used 4 different mediums that were in my visual art capacity: canvas painting, sculpture, collaging, and rock painting. From this practice, I concluded that novels promote diverse creative spaces which empower children with a voice, brilliance, well-being, and friendships. With my secondary research, I discovered the importance of these 4 types of spaces, concluding the benefits that art practices have on children and adolescences.

A SPACE FOR COMMUNICATION

Acrylic painting is my strongest medium of communication, allowing me to take feelings and intimate experiences, and give them a physical form. The space that painting creates is comforting and gives me a sense of direction in my life. Likewise, in The Planet of Junior Brown, playing the piano is the only space where Junior feels comfortable and in a true area of play. As Junior’s ability to create solar systems and play the piano is being withdrawn from him, we see how he becomes powerless, losing his figurative voice and losing his sense of direction in his world.Here, I paint Junior’s hands playing the soundless piano, floating against a space background.

A SPACE FOR MEDITATION

For me, Magazine collaging is the most relaxing and expressive medium, it feels almost like a puzzle or a personal journal. In New Kid, Jordan’s journal is a space for meditation, allowing the frustration and emotion he experiences to be transformed. His drawings develop an awareness of self and keep him mentally stable when there is no one to relate to. While Jordan’s character development is a cause of many factors, this artist practice for him generates self-confidence and reduces his anxiety. Artistic practices overall improve resilience, emotion regulation, mood, coping/social skills, confidence and self-esteem, empathy, and ability to pay attention and focus. Here I collage the “Two Planets” scene in Jerry Craft’s “New Kid”

A SPACE FOR EXPLORATION AND BRILLANCE

I find sculpture to be an adventurous medium, forcing me to expand my mind in 3-dimentional forms. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, shows how Claudia is empowered by the museum space and how her attention to detail is emphasised in the story narration. Claudia’s museum experience in improves her creativity and bodily kinesthetic intelligence justifying the effectiveness of an open-ended learning experience. Creative spaces allow exploration and brilliance to collide, weather its touring a museum or doing a short-term artistic activity, it is proven to improve memory and the function of the brain. Here I paint the penguin edition book cover of Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia.

A SPACE FOR CONNECTION

As a child I would paint on rocks with my friends and we would imagine them as magical stones. This medium became the perfect way to represent artistic practices as a space for connection. In relation to Bridge to Terabithia, we see Jesse’s confidence develop through his imaginative play with Leslie. Jesse suffers from isolation from his family, but drawings, playing music and imagination help him be comfortable around others, build his self-confidence and heals his loneliness. Creativity can bridge friendships through the attribute of sharing creations and experiences together. This space of acting and improvisation also offers a diverse spectrum of cognitive play and expands understanding about the world. Here I crafted the Angle by Michelangelo in which Claudia and Jamie heavily admires

Seeking Creative Spaces

As part of my creative research methodology, I went on a photo scavenger hunt to collect images in my London community. Each of the photographs represents either 1) space where I feel or felt empowered, 2) a space that drew connections to one of the 4 novels I analyzed and 3) a current or past creative space of either communication, meditation, brilliance, or friendship. This was a brief meditative experience that aided in collecting my thoughts and organized the areas of my thesis that I wanted to focus on.

Creek in childhood neighborhood

A creative space similar to “Bridge to Terabithia”

St. Kateri elementary school

A creative space similar to the one in “New Kid”.

London Museum

A creative space similar to the one in “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.”

University Collage

A place while I feel impowered with my creativity.

Playground

Home Piano

Results: Home Gallery

Lastly, with all my artwork, photos, and my Wasaga House map painting from a previous assignment, I curated a home art gallery to display my Unessay. Inspired by the many museums that had to shift their in-person experience to an online platform I designed this webpage to act as a virtual gallery to share my story and research.

Home Gallery Sideview

Home Gallery Fullview

Home Gallery

Resources

Want to learn more about my research? Check out my full annotated bibliography:

Unessay-Annotated-Bibliography

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