Meeting Hilma af Klint in her homeland

When I returned from maternity leave in 2016, 我和我的学生们一起检查，看看他们在第二学期想学什么. 许多学生想学习像水彩或油画这样的基本技能. 有几个女孩让我吃惊:她们想学习抽象绘画. They pointed to my paintings on the wall as examples.

我计划好了接下来的几个月，但抽象艺术并没有进入我的计划. 当我试着思考如何教授我每天画的东西时，我陷入了困境. 我甚至不确定我作品中的形状和颜色是从哪里来的，也不知道我该如何将我的作品分解成可教的
部分. 我所知道的是，自从
我开始抽象绘画，
我就爱上了绘画.
What was inside of me, and
 what I was creating, felt 
aligned. It was an amazing
 feeling. Isn’t that also, ultimately,
 what I want for my students?

Let’s travel back to 2013. 
I love bringing home and
browsing through old Art
Forum magazines. 有一天，
我看到一篇澳门威利斯网站艺术家Hilma af
Klint的小文章. When I saw her work, 
it looked just like my work. I
 put the article on the fridge
and vowed to research her. 我丈夫偶尔会提醒我，最后，我做了一些调查. 谢天谢地，因为希尔玛的生活是抽象艺术基础的完美案例研究. From then on, I was hooked and began to learn her amazing story.
 My proposal for the Paternotte grantThe Paternotte Family Faculty Travel and Study Endowment Fund, established by Nancy Brewster Paternotte ’65, 以暑期旅游的形式支持教师的专业发展. came from her story. 我想去希尔玛的家乡，了解是什么激发了她的抽象作品，以及是什么激发了瑞典当前的抽象艺术家.

When Hilma af Klint was growing up, 从她在瑞典女子学校的日子开始，她的艺术天赋就很明显了(我已经喜欢她了!)，她的家人安排她进入皇家美术学院学习. 希尔玛擅长当时的传统技术，并获得了一个珍贵的工作室空间. 毕业后，她以自然主义风格的绘画为生. 在创作这个作品的同时，希尔玛开始秘密地创作一个新的系列. Based on her automatic drawings, a love of science, and her inner spiritual life, 她开始发展自己的视觉语言，其中形状和颜色具有意义. 这种分歧导致了26000页速写本和1000多幅画.

Where Hilma went there was
 no road map. No one was creating abstract work at that time. Each day, she would buy eggs, 把她的纸粘在一起，做成12乘15英尺的大表面, mix her tempera paint, and work. It
is undeniable that she was a brave woman, driven by her conviction; her belief that what she was doing was important.

这个故事让我想到了一个问题，这个问题贯穿了我与旅途中遇到的每一个人的对话:艺术家是如何形成他们创作所需的信念的? I knew that I was supposed to be unpacking abstract art, but, instead, 抽象艺术的起源问题自然引出了这个问题——让人眼前一亮. 这是希尔玛·克林特一家一直在问的问题. 我想，如果我能试着回答这个问题，那么也许我可以教抽象艺术.

我在瑞典的斯德哥尔摩和Mälaren湖的Helgö岛上度过了我的时光. Known
for its Viking ruins, Helgö是一个小岛，瑞典人通常会去那里度假. My research goals were to understand how Hilma af Klint was inspired by her homeland; to learn more about what inspires me when I paint abstractly; and to discover how to teach my students
to create their own abstract art. My research took many forms—gallery and studio visits, museums, artist groups, thinking, painting, planning for my classes, and reading.

Swedes are very friendly and love talking about art. 
I was able to make quick connections with curators, gallerists, artists, and the Hilma af Klint Foundation. We used Hilma as a springboard for conversations about art. 我对希尔玛了解得越多，就对她的日常习惯越感兴趣. 作为一名航海制图师的女儿，她以一种非常有纪律的方式工作. To me, this is a big piece of her puzzle.

I organized her artistic life into six components. Inspired by this very concrete plan, 我以同样的方式安排了我在斯德哥尔摩的生活:我保留了一个速写本, met with groups of artists, set up a studio in my rented apartment, visited galleries and museums, and worked. It sounds simple, but it worked! This structure of planning my time gave me purpose, drove me forward, and helped me find conviction in what I was doing.

My research in Sweden led me 
in new directions, with bigger ideas about teaching and the process of art making. I returned to the states, 我觉得我花了三周的时间来成长为一名老师, 我很兴奋地看到它将如何在我的课堂上发挥作用. 那年，我决定用希尔玛的作品中同样的六个组成部分
来构建我的教学. Again, it is simple, but effective.

I quickly came up
 with dozens of innovations, 从个性化的速写本作业和小型工作室为较高水平的学生, to incorporating more time for critiquing our work, looking at other artists’ work, and discussing
 the process of art-making. As a result, 我很高兴看到这些转变可以促进学生的工作和信念.

Additionally, I wanted to take another look at abstract art. This is where the Stockholm art scene really helped me. I saw so much art that I started to organize it into categories. 与我交谈过的每个艺术家都是从不同的方法和不同的原因到达抽象艺术的. I learned that with students, I can offer a variety of approaches to abstraction, then help them notice when they arrive at something interesting. “有趣”的地方之间的时刻可能是可怕的——对于抽象艺术来说甚至更不清晰——但处理这段时间的策略是可以教授的, too. Since my research
during the E.E. Ford Faculty Seminars, 我一直在帮助学生们期待——甚至期待——这些不知道的时刻. Together, 我们已经开发了一种谈论
艺术过程的语言，并且能够以一种安全和鼓舞人心的方式相互支持.

I can guide students in techniques for making abstract art, but how can
I teach them how to put themselves into their art? Hilma explains, “At this moment, 我知道我是宇宙中的一个原子，拥有无限发展的可能性. These possibilities of knowledge I want to gradually reveal.” The answer is that this takes time. There is no road map to knowing your artistic self or, furthermore, your own self, but, 我知道艺术是了解自己最好的工具之一, 伊丽莎白·加切尔·克莱因艺术中心是开启这段旅程的理想场所.

Why do we make art? Why do I teach art? Why should we all find outlets for
creativity?
My trip to 
Sweden gave
 me many 
answers to
these questions. 当
我们找到一种
的方式，把
什么是在
我们的头脑
，并把它放在
纸上, play it
on a violin,
or dance it
on a stage, 
this can be
described as 
one of the
 best feelings in the world.

作为一名教师，我的目标之一就是帮助学生在这个忙碌的世界中有时间和空间开始或继续发挥他们的创造力. As many of you already know, once creativity starts to be a part of life, it gets easier to keep creating. How this happens is unique to each person. For me it was allowing myself to paint abstractly. For Hilma it was developing a new way of painting.

As for a few pieces of concrete advice:

• Find your hero or heroes and study them.

• 写日记或写生本，了解自己的成长，并为之庆祝.

• And, always keep inspiration on your fridge.