Sandy Seufert, Manager of Curriculum and Teaching Artist Development for The Music Center, blogs on the importance of continuing to practice your art.

As an arts administrator, it had become kind of a ‘default mode’ for me to see arts education through a lens of serving “client units” - whole regions, school districts, school staff, or even individual classrooms, as if they were single a organism.  But it has been through a recent awakening of myself as an artist that has completely sharpened my sense that art making, art participation, art exploration, and art learning IS personal – deeply personal.

I feel this so keenly that now my expectations are shifting toward those individual learners and many questions are surfacing.  Are we engaging people in such a way as to give them the tools, the confidence, and the permission to be truly creative?  The arts are transformative, but only if we create a space for them to fully reach that potential.

But let me share a little bit of my personal process and the genesis of this recent revelation.  For many years I have played music professionally (classical music on cello and folk music on violin) and have been an apt technician.  Anyone that plays an instrument (or their voice) knows the technical rigor and expertise necessary to decode and interpret those little black dots on the page. 

But despite all of that “sawing away,” I spent little time engaging any real creativity or newness.  And I think because of that, I began to feel slightly disengaged, literally not even hearing myself anymore.   

Recently I took on two distinctly different musical genres and was in a space of thinking more like a beginner.  And what gifts taking those risks have given me!  Besides just engaging in the sheer joy of exploration of other genres – Zydeco and Jazz, I awakened a realization – to PLAY music is to be at play.  And to be at play is really a complex set of learning strategies that involve exploration, courage, trust, joy, community…well, the list goes on.  

How odd it has been to discover that what I have been seeking has been there all along and all it took was changing my mind!

So, if you work in the arts or in arts education, reflect on the way you are creative, the way you take on new challenges, and the way you engage in your own choices.  Because in our own reflection comes our very best teaching.  The more you can be in your personal learning process, the more you will find that it informs how you interact with others. 

If you take your own relationship with the arts personally, the more apt you’ll be to help others make it personal too.  It is my belief that our best “leave behinds” with students in our arts education programs are what is personally relevant to each individual.   And how do we facilitate that?  The answer may be inside you, waiting to be discovered.

Sandy Seufert works for the Music Center: Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County as the Manager of Curriculum and Teaching Artist Development.  She blogs on teaching artistry for Arts for LA and is a cellist and fiddler.