Looking Towards Leading...

In our seminar today we were given the 'team building' task of creating something to wear to a celebration. We were given a selection of materials and were able to do whatever we liked, but had to work as a team. The task had to be completed in 20 minutes.

In my team there were four of us and we quickly decided that we want to make a graduation gown and hat. Without further discussion we got on with the task at hand. This meant lots of cutting, stapling and taping onto our model (who volunteered for the job). I created the black bin bag gown, Charlotte made the graduation cap and Jenny created a flower corsage to go on top of the gown. This was fun task and a really nice way to start the year off with Art!

Here are the beautiful celebration outfits our Art group made:

After we showed our outfits we were presented with a question from the Lecturer Sadie. She asked us to answer two questions individually:

Why were you able to work well as a team?

Did any members of the team take a leading role, and if so why do you think this was the case?

As a group we fed back these ideas and decided that for the task to go well the it needed to be clear, the group needed to value each other's opinions, and the members needed to be flexible and adaptable among other things. 

We also discussed some of the issues associated with leading Art and Design. For example that some teachers may be daunted with the mess that comes with som art and design processes, some professionals do not value art and design as a subject, and the resourcing of the 'Art cupboard'.