How Do Artists Learn and What can Educators Learn From Them?

Abstract

Among scholars and practitioners interested in creative learning, many assumptions and even stereotypes are nurtured about artists’ creativity. The myth of the lone genius, for example, is neither close to artistic practices nor beneficial to education. We address the topic of artistic creativity, looking at its relevance to educational settings. Through asking the question: how do artists create, learn and how can education learn from them, we have investigated and described professional artists’ creative and learning processes. In this article, we present findings from a qualitative research project that explores these questions as an empirical and theoretical contribution to the field of arts and creativity research from a learning perspective. We found that the interviewed artists experience learning and the creative process as interwoven phenomena and that they develop intentional learning strategies that they use in the effort of creating works of art. One of the strategies, based on challenging oneself, is articulated in this article. 2