The "Quality" of Child Art
I often hear concerns about the "quality" of student artwork in TAB classrooms. Just today, a student turned in a piece (below) that I think perfectly highlights the difference in quality between "show-ready" products of project-based art rooms and the work that comes from process-based TAB rooms. Before reading beyond this paragraph, I recommend first looking closely at the photo of the student's work. Allow yourself to have an honest first opinion: what do you assume or think of it? Once you have done that, read the student's artist statement (copied and pasted below). "I made my piece “Wrinkled” because I wanted to make the piece a metaphor for what's happening to the world. My piece started out as a perfect sheet of smooth, silver foil. That’s the world before the pandemic. I crumpled the foil into a ball. That’s the world when we went into our houses and didn’t really leave. Next, I flattened it out again. That is us becoming more familiar with