Encouraging mistakes to find the creativity within

Art teacher creates a safe place for budding artists to develop their talents

By Nancy Turner
The Portland Upside
January 2010

Students in Deanne Belinoff’s art classes move through their fears of creating by leaving room for accidents, delighting in surprises and learning how to use the unexpected.

Most of us go through life wanting to do things right. Right? Practice makes perfect? Fake it ‘til you make it? If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?

Imagine a teacher who says, “Do it wrong! Make the ugliest picture you can possibly make. No, make something uglier, more ugly!”

For over thirty years, Deanne Belinoff has taught art in many settings, including Pratt Art Center, Dale Chihuly’s Seniors Making Art Program, and her own Creative Process Workshops. For the past two years she has been teaching groups of five or six students in her studio on an unassuming residential corner in Northeast Portland where she transformed a garage into a sky-lit art studio for herself, and space for others to express their inherent creativity. The sign on the studio wall says, “Be open to accidents!”

I recently attended an art show of Deanne’s students’ work. She is a wizard at moving people through their fears of creating, and I wanted to learn how she does it.

Long, waist-high tables are lined with white paper. Shelves crammed with tubes of paints, brushes, glue, scissors, and scraps, fill the spaces below. Beginning students as well as those with years of experience in visual art get involved in projects that honor their individual propensities and pace. Lessons include everything from acrylic portrait painting to a bit of art history. Everyone gets the chance to observe his or her own art process.

Deanne believes the best art, like the best science, leaves room for accidents. Even discovering the polio vaccine was not a planned project. The trick is to delight in surprises and know how to use the unexpected. One student, a 45-year-old mother with a baby at home went from tedious work on her PhD in Medieval Literature to drawing huge scribbles, reminiscent of Jackson Pollack’s paintings, on two-by-six-foot paper. Eleanor Gallay, a social worker, focused on printmaking. Andrea Vargo, a petite psychotherapist, created sensitive, detailed drawings of flowers and gourds. A professional gardener, Stephanie Turner, explored new territory through acrylic painting of landscapes. One of her paintings sold at the student exhibition.

Some art is created to make social and political statements. Stacked on a side table I spy a pile of white “bones.” Deanne’s students constructed larger-than-life papier-mâché replicas of human skeletal pieces to send, each with a five dollar donation, to the One Million Bones fundraiser in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One Million Bones is an art installation designed to raise awareness and funds for the millions of victims killed or displaced by ongoing genocide around the world.

In the safe environment of a class where there is no reprimand for making a mistake, success comes early and easily. Students become more aware of their opportunities for exploration. Ragan Lusk, a CPA-turned-carpenter, became a quick learner in drawing figures. Rex Brasard, an engineer accustomed to detailed, precise work, jumped into a series of abstract paintings.

When a person goes beyond their fear of making mistakes they have the freedom to take a blank piece of paper and transform it into art. When this happens, who knows what else in their life might change? Deanne and her intrepid students stay open to any possibility.

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Deanne Belinoff may be reached at Deanne@xprt.net or by calling her at 503-281-9521. Visit her website at http://DeanneBelinoff.com

Nancy Turner lives in Happy Valley but her heart dwells in Portland. She writes non-fiction and teaches story telling and dream interpretation. She can be contacted at nturner@easystreet.net