Conductor: WCCE8 2013 – Impression VI

Saturday 9 November 2013

WCCE8 2013 – Impression VI

My posters - 2010 and 2013, and a wall full of other people's paintings

Poster 2013

Posters

Oh, how I wish that I had had the forethought to photograph all 78 of the posters on display at the World Congress. There were so many interesting stories to read and not enough time to do so in depth. Certainly not enough time for me to remember exactly what the posters looked like despite having the abstracts in front of me now. If anyone wants to send me a picture of their poster I would be really grateful and if you wish I will publish it here on my blog.

Here is my poster –

Art resets dislocation of development

However it seemed to us as we were growing up, the rich learning experiences of our childhoods did not just happen ‘naturally’. It takes adult society to frame and blend them, add meaning, and transform us into people with love and lust for life.

For me there were things like smelling flowers, finding a four-leaf clover, helping Dad to paper the wall – and stepping into a bucket of paste – bringing Grandma wild flowers and in exchange walking home with blancmange in beautiful red custard-cups, and the unearthing of an ant’s nest — to be bombarded by swallows eating them for their evening meal. For most of us, such things ‘just happen’ as life goes on – part of growing up and living.

Conductive upbringing, through conductive upbringers, makes sure that these things ‘happen’ for children and adults with disability too. It ensures the essential learning that creates that lust for life; it creates experiences that make sense of life and stories that can be told about it. All of this helps to motivate them, like the rest of us, to go forth and make the most of our lives.

I am an art teacher and art therapist as well as a conductor, and it goes without question that my conductive work cannot be free from creative influences. As an art therapist I consider the production of art first and foremost as a means of communication. Images are produced through which conversations may take place, questions asked and problems solved. Wearing my conductor’s hat the problem-solving continues: art retains it role of mediator for communication but develops an even more important presence in the context of my conductive practice and, as well as a means of communication, it becomes a way of developing many other skills. For twenty years I have used artistic projects in my conductive work, in which time I have developed conductive activities in numerous creative situations – indoors and out; sitting, standing, walking and lying; on walls, canvas and paper, using paint, papier-mâché, clay, fabrics, pencils, brushes, dusters, mops, fingers, hands and feet.

Activities involving imagination, creativity and emotion are a productive and useful means to create the upward learning spiral of success and satisfaction, experience of which leads to development of the personality as a whole. For me, as artist and art therapist, art and many other forms of creative activity are vital means of achieving this cycle as an integral part of my conductive practice. Conductors need to bring their own joys into their work to unlock clients’ developmental gridlock, to ‘reset the dislocation of development’ [1].Other conductors bring their own personal contributions to their practice, IT, music, story-telling, sport, cooking etc., the list is endless because it is the list of human enthusiasms, and it is essential that conductors indentify their own special enthusiasm as an essential part of their pedagogy.