"when can we make what WE want?". to my horror, in spite of all i have tried to get across in two years' worth of art studies, i have students drawing corner suns and copying care bears. one or two did interesting compositions but most are terribly disappointing to me. Middle-school, here. I figure that type of symbolism is hard-wired into our brains, because it shows up so often. (Can you imagine artist apprentices being smacked by Raphael, etc., as they drew corner suns? I can.) If you could seque their work into something with a naif, outsider theme, you might be able to stand it. But, philosophically, especially as I've read the posts on centers, is our being able to "stand it" the point? Sure, sophistication in imagery and technique is a goal. But I wonder how we would react if (on the extreme, extxreme other hand) our students began working on art nvolving video production and objects embedded in gelatin? I still feel uncomfortable when students draw crosses for their relief printing project. Even though our student community is basically homogenous in ethnicity, I feel part of my role is to enourage their sensitivity to others. I used to say that crosses were symbols devised by others, and so not unique, and I wanted them to create their own. But then I had to look at my own work. What unique symbols do I have? So I try to accept the imagery but still require involved production. And I suspect that your high-schoolers are doing these simplistic images as a sort of a mental break. If you persisted with their work (a la centers) they would get bored enough to evolve. Happy weekend! Maggie Tucker arttucker@earthlink.net ---