Wars between Russia and Ukraine, coups in African countries, territorial disputes in China, and now the front has expanded to the Middle East. On October 7, Israel was attacked by Hamas, the ruling force in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip, a “prison with only the sky open,” water, electricity, and even fuel were completely cut off. The Gaza Strip residents, with 2.3 million people trapped inside, have nowhere to escape disaster. Every time I hear of a tragedy like this, I pray.

And what should artists do in times like this?

Visual arts are not bound by barriers of nationality, language or even culture and have an inherently universal nature that contributes greatly to the concept of peace. Just as the dove has been universally recognized as a symbol of peace since Pablo Picasso first used it as a symbol of the First World Peace Conference in Paris in 1949, visual art has the power to connect individual hearts regardless of external differences. I have .

As an artist, an artist can deliver a message for peace.

Art can serve as a means of fostering understanding and empathy between different cultures and communities, as it often transcends language and cultural barriers. It can provoke thought and dialogue, raising awareness about the importance of peace and conflict resolution. 

​This is also a reason why, as artists, we should not neglect our efforts for peace.

Reference: http://news.hwpl.kr/ko/news/view/190202369

Playwriting  Breakdown

Theater production class goal: Students will be able to create a one-act situation play by writing about unexpected situations in their daily lives and using them to create storytelling.

Level: 8th grade

Description of New York State Theater standards: . TH:Cr1.1.8, TH:Pr4.1.8, TH:Re9.1.8

The teacher presents a situation in Halloween. Have them discuss unexpected situations that can happen during the day of Halloween. Students form groups of three and sit in a circle.

- The teacher explains to the students the situation in Halloween. Ask about unexpected things that can happen on Halloween. This is like Murphy's Law.

- The teacher divides the students into 5 groups of 3 each, brainstorms for each group, and then has them present in a relay format.

Main activity: Creating unexpected situations for one-act situation plays. Unexpected situations include incidents that occur suddenly, unintended misunderstandings, unresolved conflicts, unexpected mistakes, and responses that cannot be prevented in advance.

I . The teacher will have students sit in a circle. 

II. The teacher selects a representative from each of the five groups and instructs them to come forward and explain the play.

Situational example: For Halloween trick-or-treating, I dressed up as a witch and went out into the street carrying a basket.

Group 1: I visited a house, and as soon as I opened the door, a bulldog bits the hem of my costume.

After Group 1 finishes presenting, Group 2 continues Group 1's story.

Group 2: My clothes tore while pulling on the hem of the costume. I tried to get the candy, but the dog kept barking at me.

After Group 2's presentation, Group 3 continues the relay.

Group 3: I left home and fell while running. All the candy in the basket I was carrying spilled out.

After Group 3's presentation, Group 4 continues the presentation. After other teams' presentations, each team member must discuss to create their own story.

Group 4: I was about to give the candy, but suddenly it started raining. I couldn't pick candy anymore.

Group 5: I went into the house next door to avoid the rain. But the door was locked.

III. After the students have finished reenacting the situation, the teacher instructs them to write down their situation on the notebook. Students create lines for Group 5 situations, or five situations.

 IV. The teacher will instruct them to rehearse a situational comedy titled ‘Murphy’s Law in Halloween.’ This time, students take on different roles in their respective groups and practice their lines.

V. Conclusion - Students will perform a one-act situation play about five situations created on the rehearsal day. The teacher records this by filming it on video.

Evaluation items

- Did the students actively attempt to create a situation as a member of each group? (Contribution)

- Did the students' situational dramas about unexpected events proceed naturally like a relay?

- Were students able to document their play?

- Do students understand ‘unexpected situations’?

- Were the students able to create lines for the play about the situations they imagined?

- Can students act out their lines according to their roles on rehearsal day?

My students and I made a scarecrow for a local scarecrow contest. From October 25th to 31st during Halloween, the area around the local small center will be beautifully decorated. This scarecrow has many different appearances.

I made a scarecrow with the Statue of Liberty motif with my students. The materials used were mainly recycled materials to be environmentally friendly. For the scarecrow, I used Mosquito repellent bamboo sticks, a gold tablecloth for the clothes. The torch held by the Statue of Liberty was made using a container that contained Play Doh. Additionally, I laminated and attached pictures drawn by children around the clothes of the goddess statue. This became a small galley shaped like a scarecrow. As an artist, I love exhibiting community art forms that engage the community. Children can also contribute to the community through this.

This is my first time participating in a scarecrow contest. Having grown up mainly in the city, I don't really know how to make a scarecrow. But I made it by learning from the beginning, one step at a time. And there were many lessons in the process of installing and showing it to people. Above all, the scarecrow must be built to withstand rain and strong winds. I made numerous devices to prepare for such an event, but the power of nature was more powerful than I thought. In the end, when I visited today and checked briefly, my scarecrow had changed its position and every corner of it looked as if it had been at war. Of course, the scarecrow I applied for was not accepted in any award.

Although there may be differences in degree, everyone experiences failure and frustration in their lives. As an artist, I too have experienced countless failures. And this process is currently ongoing. But even though I know I will fail, I keep trying.

From a pedagogical perspective, the failures that a child inevitably experiences in the learning process are also said to have an impact on the continued challenge or development of academic performance. In the past, failure was only perceived as a negative thing. Therefore, it was thought that children who continuously experience failure learn helplessness, that no matter how hard they try, they cannot succeed. So parents tried to prevent their children from experiencing failure whenever possible.
 
However, in contrast, Clifford's 1988 'Constructive Failure Theory' argued that failure experiences do not always lead children to learn helplessness, but rather promote positive and constructive activities under certain conditions. The tendency to react to failure experiences in a constructive manner is called ‘Failure Tolerance’. It is good to give a helpless child who has experienced failure an experience of success, but what is more effective is to encourage them to experience positive failure and develop failure tolerance, which will lead to better results in the long run. That's why they say failure is a part of success.

I strongly agree with this part. Even if you look at your surroundings and receive easy rewards, you will not be able to easily run for long periods of time if you do not have strong inner motivation and passion.

Rather, I see students who have failed a lot grow by taking on more challenges. The same goes for artists. Artists who are strong on the inside and have the courage to not be swayed by any wind or temptation are people who have experienced many failures. I also intend to fail in this regard. Failure prevents arrogance in the heart. I am good at drawing. The pride of being the best gets in the way of pursuing true art.

​Every time I do that, I am grateful for this precious failure. And I respect my students because they already have that attitude and enjoy failure itself. I learned a lot from this Scarecrow competition and will participate again next year with the same mindset.

Challenges give you experience, and it creates new opportunities.

As an artist, I always hear stories like this from people around me. “That’s so brave.” Above all, an artist must pioneer an invisible path and continue to create something on his own. If you're tired or afraid of creating new things like this, you can't be called an artist. In this respect, I believe that I am a natural born artist. I know that there is learning even in failure, and that you can't learn anything if you don't even fail. And this is my own way of survival as an artist.

Every time I fail, I also get frustrated. I teach drawing to my students, and my students also participate in competitions and take on new challenges. Here, there are big and small achievements, but there are also frustrations and failures. In the long run, failure is often more helpful than success in art. Failure makes me reflect on myself little by little, become humble, and focus more on the core things I like genuinely . The answer to the question, “Do I love the art of painting more than any reward or recognition?” is more evident when I fail than when I succeed. In this respect, failure is another form of success. So at some point, I don't care whether I succeed or fail as an artist. You won't be excited if something goes well, and you won't be sad if you fail. However, I am thankful that I have the opportunity to succeed as well as fail.

In the article, “The mentor as artist: a poetic exploration of listening, creating, and mentoring Celeste Snowber* Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada,” I learned a lot about ways to express the connection between mentoring, leadership, and art-making. I was able to learn something. Among the phrases presented here, the expression below was particularly impressive.

  In her classic work “Walking on Water: Reflections on Art and Faith,” L’Engle (1980) reflects on the artist’s thoughts at the service of art, saying, ‘Inspiration comes to me much more often during my work than before. The artist's task is to listen to her work and go where it tells him to go' (p. 149). Her deep listening to herself, others, art, and the natural world informs both her mentoring and art-making. There is an art to listening to our lives. (Excerpt from text)

In particular, the fact that an artist must learn to serve the work, to listen to where the work is going, and to respect the vitality of the work itself helped me find the topic of art education that I should study.

In this sense, I discovered the keywords "community-based art education" and "special education", which are fundamental to how to serve. I also discovered "studio art", for the vitality of the work itself, and "museum art", where I could learn to respect this. There is also "educational theatre", which requires deep listening and mentoring of oneself, others, art, and the natural world, and art therapy, which helps us listen to our lives.

Among the phrases introduced in the article, I was particularly moved by the phrase, “As humans, our lives are works of art with constantly changing ways of being and becoming.” When we look at our lives as artists, we can say that they are works of art in themselves.

The keyword with this meaning would definitely be educational theatre. As I studied this discipline, I discovered that paintings are not physical works, but works of art that blend into daily life, and my world of art and values changed to become more vibrant. Additionally, the storytelling techniques learned through this can be applied to community-based art education or special education. I think of this connection as creating a picture book.

The picture books are life itself, a mixture of each individual's thoughts, history, philosophy, knowledge, and dreams. We can connect with each other through these individual works of art. Therefore, in order for the work to become art for everyone and not just for myself or the specific class, I think there must be a transition to a medium that the public can enjoy and share more. This can be seen as the same type of animation, graphics, etc.

This article presents a poem by the Persian poet Hafiz (2002).

This poem captures the need for a loving environment for flowers to bloom.

In other words, I believe that the activity of making picture books is the basic work that provides a lovely environment in which children, like beautiful flowers, will bloom.

This paper presents an example of utilizing arts-based educational research methods to explore poetic ways of expressing the connections between mentoring, leadership, and art making. The relationship between deep listening to ourselves and each other is emphasized as essential to expanding the concept of research to include our own lives as works of art. Connecting with the natural world through poetic form and the concept of mentoring as co-creating art. 

The mentor's task is to open a space of hospitality, a tradition rooted in spiritual practice that integrates hospitality, listening, and mindfulness (Merton, 1961; N'hat Hanh, 1976; Nouwen, 1981; Chichester, 1990; Guenther).

In her classic work “Walking on Water: Reflections on Art and Faith,” L’Engle (1980) reflects on the artist’s thoughts at the service of art, saying, ‘Inspiration comes to me much more often during my work than before. The artist's task is to listen to the work and go where it tells him to go' (p. 149). Deep listening to oneself, others, art, and the natural world informs both mentoring and art making. There is an art to listening to our lives.

Author and theologian Buechner (1992) said: 'The most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives as much richer beings. The gift of art in life is that it makes me pay attention to nuances and emotions I had never been aware of, whether it be the resonance of poetic language or the colors of maroon and burgundy in a painting. Art wakes me up, and I am amazed once again by the beauty of life.

The artist must learn to serve the work, to listen to where it is going and to respect its own vitality.

Cultivating the soul requires a certain kind of rigor that requires the individual to look at all aspects of personal growth, including the light, the dark, and the shadows.

I am reminded of a poem by the 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz (2002): This poem captures the need for a loving environment for flowers to bloom. What happened to the rose? How did the rose open its heart and bring its beauty to the world? It felt the encouragement of light into its presence. Otherwise we would all be too scared. (p. 161) Mentoring is, metaphorically speaking, listening to the roses in our lives. The best quality we can offer the world is to be our authentic selves and work with our own nature.

As humans, our lives are works of art with constantly changing ways of being and becoming.

* This post is a note after reading an article," The mentor as artist: a poetic exploration of listening, creating, and mentoring Celeste Snowber* Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada."