by Kristy Muhic Arroyo
There was no designated art teacher or art room in the Open Classroom during the first three years that I was in the program (from 1971-1973), and I didn’t need an art teacher or art room to know that I could always feel free to take creative risks and to be an artist. I feel that because of the influence of the times, growing up in the San Geronimo Valley in the 70s and 80s, and being a child of an Open Classroom family, I became the artist, the art teacher and the parent that I am today. Children in the Open Classroom had the freedom to explore their interests as far as they wanted to take them. I was never told, “No you can’t do that, it would never work.” The culture I was brought up in was a “yes” culture. I had the freedom to play alone for hours, to think for myself, to make my own decisions and to take risks. I drew hundreds of figure drawings in the empty back pages of my picture books. No one told me I couldn’t. I spent hours reading books in the corner of a room, rarely bothering to learn other subjects, because I wanted to. I decided to study art in college. I created art through art school and beyond, because that’s what I knew I had to do, and it never entered my mind that it should be any other way.
I practice saying yes every single day as an Open Classroom art teacher. Some days I may fail, but I try to remind myself that this is the goal: to encourage all children to never be afraid to take risks, to believe that there is no wrong way to do something, and that everything should be tried at least once just to see what happens.
“Past and Present” is a collage of my art from 8 years old to 2021. I gathered sketchbook drawings, photos, prints and writings and layered them into a spiral that begins chronologically in the lower right corner with my sketchbook drawings at 8 years old, surrounds an ink drawing I created 20 years ago in art school and spirals through the years to the present times, ending back at the lower right hand corner to now.