[Day One of Squam Art Workshops :: Polaroid taken by the lovely Susannah Conway.]
OK, if I could have figured out how to do html editing on my title, it would have looked like this:
Squam Art Workshops :: On Teaching Learning
because my experience teaching two classes with my lady love Marisa Haedike (that's right, world, I don't care who knows - I'm madly in love with Marisa!) felt more like an exchange rather than a one-way transaction. The experience was like a cozy house, where every room had something comfortable, warm, and inspiring to offer, and when I walked out and shut the door behind me as I boarded the plane back home I felt rejuvenated rather than drained, filled with gratitude, in awe of all the beauties who trusted Marisa and I to help bring their ideas to life.
The Living Room: As a teacher, I felt totally provided for, where Marisa and I were given absolute freedom to structure the class how we wanted, and then given a extraordinary space within which to make it real. On Thursday, Marisa and I walked into a room with twinkly lights and a sparkling fire, and on Saturday we took over a wide open space with sunlight streaming through the windows. If you've been reading all the other blog posts here and there about Squam, then you already know - the lake, the trees, the sunlight...it was magic.
The Kitchen: This is where Marisa and I spent a lot of time experimenting and playing in order to come up with a structure and plan for the class, play being the operative word. I could write volumes about all the reasons I adore Marisa, but the story I found myself telling over and over again as Squam drew closer was of the beautiful way Marisa and I balanced each other. If Marisa was the cat sitting still in a stream of sunlight by a window, I was the bouncy puppy running around in circles. On one of our field trips to buy supplies for our students, we went to a huge antique mart that is a warehouse filled with dozens of displays managed by different vendors. We walked into the mart together, and as Marisa enjoyed browsing the books at one display, I proceeded to do a lap around the entire building, scoping out where the best books were. When I went to find Marisa to give her my full report, she was exactly where I had left her, taking her time with a stack of books on a couch.
Marisa, without ever saying the words out loud, always reminded me to take a deep breath, stay in the moment, and trust the process. She was the calm force in our partnership - reliable, strong, peaceful.
The Studios: Marisa and I taught two classes, and I am still in awe of all the beautiful, heartfelt creations made over the course of those two days. The way I see it, Marisa and I provided a very basic foundation, and every person who took our class built their own unique structure from that. Everyone in both classes added their own special flair to their books, and I would love to invite them all to be guest speakers at any future Book in a Day classes. On that note, it must be said that we even took a binding technique Jenny Doh shared with us in our Thursday class and incorporated it into our Saturday demonstration. I hope that we taught our students something new and inspired them to go a little farther along their creative path, because they certainly did the same for me.
It is my hope that I am able to teach again at Squam Art Workshops, but if the gods don't have it in store for me that will be OK, as this experience was absolutely enough.
“Teaching is the greatest act of optimism” ~Colleen Wilcox
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