Creativity Explored

Hi everyone! This is Ryan.

I apologize that this blog is a little late.

What I've learned from other CSF's over the colloquias we've had is that there is true happiness to be found through community work, and that being exposed to what each other are doing inspires us to really jump into our work. My community partner, Creativity Explored, is an organization that provides an art studio for people with developmental disabilities. Needless to say, I have learned a lot of this experience. I've never been so appreciative, and I have really enjoyed the time working on projects with the artists there. Everyone has their own process, and allowing the artists to approach their processes without getting in the way has taken me out of the box, and allowed me to examine my own process with a more objective eye. My site supervisor, Francis, has taught me a lot of patience.

The challenges I have faced at first existed in getting familiar with the artists. I didn't have strong experience with people with developmental disabilities, and honestly, it took me a few weeks to get comfortable and be myself, because I was worrying so much about being respectful. I am far past being uptight now, and I am very comfortable with everyone there. I've developed relationships with the artists there and know everyone pretty well. Now my challenges lie in helping the artists come up with project ideas that they can get excited about, and in helping them to understand new processes. This is basically overcome with trial and error, but it is working. For example, I tried a lot of different drawing mediums with a guy named Norman that I work with quite frequently. He didn't seem to get too excited about the different mediums, but then one day, we made some block prints. He liked the block prints a lot, and now he works in that media a lot more. He has also opened up more to painting over his text (which a lot of his work focuses on) and then rewriting, or finding other ways to "go back in" to the piece.

-CSF Ryan Humphries