The Anti-Colouring Books

Today, I will present to you Susan Striker.
Susan is a preschool and elementary art educator in Greenwich Connecticut in the United States. She lives in Easton, Connecticut.
In 1984, Susan founded the Young at Art® private Art School in Manhattan, New York where she taught children from one to five years of age and gave art-activity birthday parties for children aged one through 12. At those parties, children decorated the birthday cake and the art projects that they made became the party favors. She now has started to work on a Young at Art® Outreach program, licensing schools all over the U.S.A. as well as on Young at Art® curricula. She recently completed a project of making videos of her teaching art classes, so that other teachers could play them in their classes.
Susan is also the author of the following books: Young at Art®, Please Touch and of course the series of 20 Anti- Coloring Books®.
If you like to learn more about Susan Striker’s books and her point of view how to teach art to children, visit her web page:http://www.susanstriker.com/.
I was inspired by Susan Anti-Coloring ideas and I decide to try this activity during my art atelier.The kids’ reactions were various, some of the 4 years old already know, what they will draw. Other, who was 7 years old, found this assignment extremely difficult and they needed more than 15 minutes to decide what exactly to do. However, after this fun drawing I am sure that kids never see the same as adults. For example all kids saw the pairs of scissors not just as pairs of scissor but as a butterfly, a flower, a woman etc.
You can see their pictures at: http://www.susanstriker.com/scissorssamp.html
Nevena: What do you think about the Colouring books?
Why?
Susan: Coloring books consist of drawings created by adults that children merely fill in. These activities communicate to children that adults do not value child art and that children should not bother to draw by themselves. In fact, childrens' art is wonderful for people who understand how to look at it. Pablo Picasso was quoted as saying that he "wished he could draw like a child". Jackson Pollack's paintings are in every great museum in the world, but when children splatter paint, as he did, their parents object.
What is the core idea of the books, to provoke or to inspire kids’ imagination?
Susan: To inspire children to get back to drawing by themselves, experimenting with art and having fun doing so - not worrying about how their art might, or might not, please adults.
Susan, can you tell me how comes the idea of Anti-Colouring books?
The Anti-Coloring Books were originally created out of the most successful art lessons that I teach my students. I converted these fun projects to coloring book format, because I was aware that so many parents were accustomed to buying coloring books for their children. My book was meant to wean the children away from those stifling activities. I had gone back to school to do some graduate work and the professor was talking about how terrible coloring book type activities are for children. I raised my hand and said that was "old" news back when I was an undergraduate. Good teachers never give children coloring books, parents do. They are not bad parents, indeed they are good to be giving their children books. I asked, "Why doesn't someone write something that will reach parents and offer them an alternative?" The professor then said that if I could do that he would give me an "A" in the course and excuse me from doing any of the assignments and taking any of exams. I put together some of my best projects in a one page, black and white format and presented it in class, along with samples of my students' work. The class shocked me by applauding when I was finished and the teacher gave me an "A" in the course and suggested that I try to get it published. I met someone at a family gathering who was a published author and proudly told him of my experience. . He offered to show my project to his editor and she bought it. She didn't want to call it "Anti" because, at that time, it was thought that books that had negative titles don't sell. I insisted that the title was an important part of the book, communicating the negative aspects of coloring books as well as offering an alternative.
What is the last project that you work on?
I am doing several projects simultaneously. I have put together a collection of international folk art and photographed it all and written books for children. I am also putting all of my best art lessons on paper and video so other teachers can benefit from the hard work I have done teaching art for so many years. I posted two of them on You-Tube, and you can watch me teach them at Susan Striker. I am also putting together a book that I call "ART-Rithmetic", which is art projects that teach math concepts. All of the projects I am working on now I plan to self publish because traditional publishers don't think they will "sell." For me, I consider it the legacy I will leave behind. Two years ago I had a health scare. It turned out fine, but for a while I was in the hospital thinking I might die. It got me going on this project. As soon as I recovered, I began furiously working on putting together my most important work and getting it published rather than waiting for some publisher to come along. For my whole career I have been typing up lesson ideas and photographing childrens' art work but I really didn't know why I was doing it. No I am putting together the summary of my career in about 12 new books - maybe more.