Art Room Overload

For those of you teachers who have had the experience of moving to a new room or new school, you probably know all too well how overwhelming it can feel to make a new art room your own.  I find myself in that very situation this year.  While I am excited to begin my school year at a new school and closer to my home, I must admit I felt very overwhelmed walking into an overly cluttered, disorganized art room this summer. (Not that I expected anything else, I have been through this before.)

My first thoughts were, "Where am I going to fit the kids? Where did the last art teacher make room for them?" Looking around the room, I could tell there was no room for a gathering and group discussion space and that became a top priority for me.  Next, all the wall space for hanging visual aids and hanging artwork were filled instead with cabinets half full of random junk!  I rolled up my sleeves and started emptying three cabinets that I found to be excessive and taking up too much kid space.  We need space to move around and make things in people! After hours of sweaty labor, emptying, piling, moving things, I managed to haul all the extra furniture items into the hallway for storage.  Satisfied with my first few hours there, I went home.

Upon my return two days later, I arrive to find all the tables covered in boxes of supplies for the year! While I love opening all the supplies and imagining what they will become, I simply wasn't ready for it this time.  All the built in cabinets needed to be rearranged and organized in a way that suits my teaching style and also to take stock of what I already have available.  Not to mention that I hadn't decided the best way to arrange the tables that were now piled high in dozens of boxes.  There was not much else to do, but roll up my sleeves again.

Trying to ignore the boxes on the tables,  I rearranged the tables about five times until I was satisfied with the work space layout. Next I took everything out of every cabinet and set it on the counters.  I reorganized all the supplies into categories: Drawing Tools, Painting, Printmaking, Fiber Art/Weaving, Sculpture/Collage, all clay went into the little kiln room.  Then I started opening and unpacking all the boxes and putting them into their categories before attempting to fit all the supplies back into the cabinets.

I just started to hang up my expectations and an art room word wall on the afternoon of our open house. The room is not quite finished yet, but it is starting to feel more my own.  My husband even came in and helped me set up my technology cart so that I could move it around easily and make sure everything works before the first day of school.  All this work is well worth the effort though, since in the end I am trying to create an inviting space to learn and create in.  On open house, I didn't see many students, but one girl stopped in and was so happy about how the art room looked and told me she couldn't wait to come and make art here!  Its going to be a good school year and it all starts for me on Monday!