The Strangest Art Room Discoveries (Ep. 464)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers. This show is produced by the Art of Education, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

It is April and it is spring cleaning time, and whether you want to admit it or not, you probably have some things in your art room that need to get tossed. And that’s okay. We have to have a wide variety of supplies on hand because our teaching involves so many materials, so many different media, painting and drawing and sculpture and mixed media, and the list goes on and on. We have so many specific tools and resources. And all of those things help our students to have exposure to different materials, let them try different things as they’re developing their skills and discovering their preferences. And that stuff builds up. You think about what’s in your supply closet, it is a lot, and we need a lot of that stuff, or at least most of that stuff.

Supplies can be costly and budgets are not great, and things can be hard to find. So we start to collect and we start to gather, and our cabinets and our closets tend to fill up. But I think it’s important for our teachers to strike a balance between being well-prepared and actually hoarding supplies. So keeping an excessive amount of materials can lead to clutter, it can lead to disorganization, it can lead to a lot of waste. So we want to encourage you to at least try to stay organized a little bit, maybe toss some of those materials, keep yourself organized, keep yourself efficient, and we can do that just a little bit at a time.

And we’ve been talking about all things organization over on the Art of Ed community the past few weeks. We’ve been talking about spring cleaning. And Jen Leban, our online community manager, is going to be here today talking about all of those spring cleaning things, but also answering the question, the important question for today, what is the weirdest thing that you have found in your art room? Because we all have that story. In the course of cleaning, we’re going to find some weird stuff. Every art teacher does. So we’re going to share our stories. We’re going to hear from some community members today, some people who shared when we did the art room makeover on YouTube and just hear some of the best or some of the worst things that we’ve found. So let me bring on Jen now.

I’m back from our spring break, and spring cleaning is just such a thing to think about, new beginnings and everything. And I know when I was in the classroom without fail, every year, I’d come back from spring break and I would get this, what’s the phrase, this bee in my bonnet, that I needed to go in and change things. I know I’m an old lady. That I would need to change things and I would start redoing my whole classroom knowing the school year was almost done, but I didn’t care. I just needed to redecorate or refresh, make it feel good. So it just seemed perfect spring cleaning is a monthly theme to come out, even though we all as a community engagement team, we all kind of decided together on the themes.

But I remember just throwing that out because it just seemed perfect to do, sorry, that’s not worded well, but to help motivate each other in the community to do small things, to help clean your classroom. It’s just such a persistent issue with art teachers, our rooms are messy. It’s organized chaos. We know where everything is so, I mean, that’s okay, but we have a lot of stuff, and sometimes we just procrastinate. So I think maybe we could use the community and a little bit of that peer pressure, just little things each week, clean out a desk drawer, clean a shelf. It doesn’t have to be the whole closet. It could just be set a timer for five minutes, that’s what we used to do with my son when he was little. We want to clean his room. We set a five-minute timer and you see how much you get done. So trick yourself like that.

I got to say though, the peer pressure actually worked on me. I re-organized my drawing supplies, got all my markers in order. It worked. It worked.

Nice. Well, please take a photo and share with the community. We would love to see it. Well, also, we get good ideas for how teachers organize stuff and how they do things and put stuff in different area. When you share, there are things that you think are perfectly ordinary or not that significant, and someone else sees it, and it could be really obvious, but it just never occurred to them. And you have that light bulb moment, you’re like, oh my gosh, I would like to organize them by color too, rather than dumping them in a bin, or something like that. That’s, again, obvious, not earth-shattering, but when you see it, it’s just like something clicks.

Yeah, no, I love those moments. I think that’s a really good thing. So I think that’s very cool. Okay, so I need to ask you about weird things that you have found in your classroom because I love hearing those stories. I feel like every art teacher has something that they’ve found or something strange that’s been left over. For me, when I moved from elementary to high school, I walked in and I filled literal dumpsters with the amount of crap that was in there. Two things that really stood out to me were the taxidermied animals that were all over. There was a giant turkey up on top of the shelves when I first came in. And then there were also a couple other smaller animals that I found in the closet later on. And I assume they were being used for still lifes, but I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what the art teacher was doing with those.

What did you do with them?

Oh, I tossed them. I know, kind of regret now, and I was actually talking about this with my own kids just a day or two ago as we were planning this, and my son’s like, “Oh my God, you could have gotten such good money for those.”

You could have sold them.

Right, but then I was like, you know what? There was so much stuff that I had to get rid of that I didn’t think about putting them on eBay or whatever. I need to get rid of this.

At a certain point, the energy that it would take for you to sell those. And I get it, in my own house when I’m decluttering, it’s like, I’m just going to donate this and give it away, even though I could probably sell it and get money, but just the energy and that mental weight that it holds. So maybe better to just let it go.

Not worth it. But the other thing that sticks with me is there was printmaking ink from best I could tell, it did not have an expiration date, but looking back at old logos from the company, it was from the late fifties, early sixties. Very, very old printmaking stuff.

I feel like I might’ve had some of that too.

Yeah, it was so bad. Anyway, I was asking you the question, have you had things like that in your classroom? What have you found?

So I didn’t have anything fun like a taxidermy animal because I would’ve loved and cherished those. So I started in the classroom in the year 2000, so I just turned 46, so I inherited, and I got the job when the art teacher before me retired. I student taught with her in her retirement year, and I was very fortunate because this was a time where it was really hard to find jobs. I was very lucky. I was able to move into that classroom. But I did inherit a significant closet-

I was going to say like, 40 years worth of stuff.

Very old items. Yeah. So remember at that time, we didn’t have document cameras. We didn’t have… Do you remember? We used to have to buy giant poster board art reproductions in order to-

Oh my God. Yeah, that was a huge part of my teaching when I first started. So I started in 2002 and when you could get your hands on good poster reproductions, those were so valuable.

That’s all you needed because you… So you had your slide projector and carousel. So I had a bunch of those in my class that I did have to get rid of. Overhead projector. I remember being mind-blown because when I learned you could print onto overhead projector material in color, I was like, it was like a game-changer. And now it’s so funny because it’s not even a thing people.

No, it’s not. We’re really aging ourselves. But I remember my wife is a history teacher, and when we first started, we bought a home printer and she had to print maps onto overhead paper, and it was so valuable for her.

Yes, that was a big deal. So I had binders full of that stuff.

I was going to say, we’re old. We’re old.

No, we’re old, but even though we’re old, I found stuff in my closet that was even older. So I think a lot of people can relate to… Yarn and burlap that just smells really moldy and makes you sneeze. So that had to just-

That had to go.

Ditched. Yeah. So slides, photocopies, VHS tapes, got to get rid of those. And then I was thinking about it and I’m like, I don’t know if I found anything really, really weird, but I probably left some weird stuff in my closet for the next person.

Yeah, that’s very true. That’s very true. I feel like I cleaned out the worst of it, but then as you’re there for a while, you’re like, oh, this could make for a fun project. And then you leave it there.

Yeah, I was there for 13 years, so I no doubt, probably left some really weird things for the next person.

Oh yeah. It’s like a rite of passage for our teachers though. I don’t even feel bad about it.

I wish I had thought about it and almost time capsuled and purposely hid weird things. How fun would that have been?

That would be good. Be really good. Okay, so did you watch the art room makeover YouTube series that we did? It was probably like a year and a half ago now.

I love that series. It is one of my favorite things I’ve seen on a YouTube channel.

Okay.

Yeah.

It’s great. For those that are not familiar, we went to just outside of Baltimore and went through this art teacher’s room, and he was legitimately a hoarder, and we really had to get rid of a lot of stuff and just some of the stuff we found. There’s a great Instagram reel about that showing some of the weird stuff we found. I think the weirdest, there’s just a big Target bag that was just filled with wigs and weaves.

The hair. Yes.

I’m like, what even is the use of… What were you planning to do with these things?

Very avant-garde.

It must have been. It was something else. So anyway, I actually went back and I found that post, and I know I shared that with you, so I want to read a couple off of there, a couple comments of things that people have found. One was from NSV, or NVS Art, and she said in her art room closet, she found a tarantula preserved in a glass globe.

Jealous.

Posted on a square wooden box display. This is right up your alley, isn’t it?

I know. Lucky.

She said, “It was dead obviously, but preserved in some special see-through gel. I used it as a drawing prop, but then someone stole it.”

See, obviously, it’s ripe for stealing.

Someone after your own heart. I need this for my living room decoration.

Yes.

And then MST Art Studio, that said, “A calendar from the year I was born, which was 20 years before the school has ever opened.” I was going to say, so talk about finding old stuff. That’s a great one. And she said, “I also found a half ton worth of bags of Quikrete, so a thousand pounds of quick set concrete.” She said, “It took me three years to finally remove it.” I can’t even imagine.

Yeah, I’d be like, “Hey custodians, you need this Quikrete?” They’d be like, “Nope.”

No thanks. So looking at that, did anything catch your eye? Any of those comments?

Well, I was actually looking at the reel itself and I was identifying with… I was like, oh, there’s my slide carousel that I was talking about, it was right in there. And the other one that really resonated me with me was the broken skeleton. I was like, oh, I definitely left one or more of those behind.

Oh, I was going to say… Well, everybody has those skeletons because they’re used for so many drawing projects, but yet between being moved in and out all around and then just being around kids, they’re going to get broken. They’re going to be missing pieces.

The drawing mannequins too. I had many that were missing a leg or missing a… And then we would try to get creative and we’d be like, it’s a pirate one. He has a peg leg. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s good. Okay. So anyway, moving on from that. We also had the post in the community asking people to share organization pictures, which were very cool, but also talk about the weirdest things that they’ve found in their room. So I had a couple there and I asked you to find a couple too. So I want to read three that I thought were kind of fun. Jennifer Jasper posted a really nice picture, seemed pretty organized, and then I looked on top. I’m like, what is that purple and pink plastic up there? I couldn’t even process what it was. And Jennifer said, “The weirdest thing might be the outdoor playhouse stored up top.”

It was like a Little Tykes house.

Right? It was like for toddlers. I was like, why is that in the art room? I don’t know.

That one, I’m not sure. Yeah.

But again, we don’t have answers for these things. They’re just stuffed there. Denise Tan had ostrich eggs. And Sarah DeKent, which I think a lot of people have found, found a dead mouse, which never good.

Not like a cool taxidermy one either, we should clarify. It was just a dead mouse. Yeah, gross. Yeah.

Did you have some favorites that you saw?

Yes. So Jessica Stuver found a mannequin with tree branches for arms, and I thought, well, yeah, that would probably weird me out a little bit too. But again, in keeping with our theme here, I also have creepy doll heads on display in my living room, so who knows? I may have found it fascinating, just like the taxidermy and the tarantula.

Fair. Fair.

Yeah. The other one that I thought was interesting, we had two different people actually post, Mariana Ruiz found a bunch of old cleaner fluid, and then Jamie Eaton found old glue mixture in a container. So I was just thinking of containers of random liquids. So Jamie’s container of glue mixture had this face taped to the lid, which was really hilarious. So I don’t know if it was done by a kid or what, which made me think, man, I should have done that, taped faces on my lids. But it reminded me, I did find an old science lab kind of bottle with the cork in the top and a weird label on the front in my art closet, and it was filled with some kind of mystery solution. I actually took it to the science teacher. I was like, “Is this safe or am I going to kill myself with acid?” I ended up dumping the liquid and saving the bottle, and the bottle still lives on the shelf in my living room, just so you know.

Okay, very cool, but also very worrisome. When do you call in poison control? When is this dangerous?

The science teacher also didn’t know what it was, but did deem it safe. So I was like, okay. Safe enough. I wasn’t worried.

Okay, fair. But I don’t have any expertise.

Best to check, yeah.

Who knows what that is. Okay. So I have one other question for you, but something else that just came up philosophically is just thinking about art teachers, and we all seem to have walked into these situations, but then you and I talked about and admitted, we start to collect those things ourselves. We start see just hoard weird things. Why do you think that is? I am wondering, is it something where our creative brains are always, we can use that so I better keep it? Or what leads us do you think, to keeping all of these weird things around in our classrooms?

I do think it is partly that, we have that sense of resourcefulness, like I could use this. And also just our admiration for all things weird or creative.

True, true.

Yeah. But I do wonder if, not to get super Freudian, but maybe we do have, art teachers in general, we have that scarcity mindset because we never have enough money, we never have enough supplies, we never have enough jobs. We’re constantly fighting to not have our program cut, and scrimp save and all that. So I think, I don’t know, makes us all anxious and therefore we need to save.

That makes a lot of sense. That’s a really good answer though. Yeah.

Not to expose all of our-

All of our insecurities.

But yeah.

But you’re not wrong.

Yes.

Okay. So I guess final question. I always like to leave with advice. What would you tell people, what is the best way to handle all of those weird and strange and fantastic things that you find in your classroom?

Well, I mean the fantastic, you got to keep and you take it home and put it in your living room. Yeah, fair. But honestly, I was thinking about this, and I don’t know if I am in the minority here, but I really am kind of a purger and not a saver. I mean, again, I do have… I think maybe what I deem to be worthy of saving [inaudible 00:18:10] that’s probably part of it. But I think that comes from, maybe I watched too many episodes of Hoarders or maybe I’ve had to clean out too many relatives’ former homes, if you’ve ever had a great aunt or something.

We’ve been through that.

Yeah, that’s again, when you’re older, you have those things. But if I haven’t used something in a while and it’s easy enough to replace, like bins of cardboard tubes or tin cans, empty bottles, yarn, things that you can replace those pretty easily. It’s like, just pitch it or recycle it because the mental weight of those objects is just huge. Not to get all Marie Condo and bringing you joy stuff, but.

Yeah, does it bring you joy?

Yeah. But a lot of that kind of stuff you can pitch and if you regret it later, you can get more of that stuff pretty easily. It’s different when you’re looking at equipment and non-consumable items. But all that being said, I don’t know. I feel like I’m the kind of person that would rather start with nothing and build up from there. I would find it more appealing to come into a school with a new art program and build it up than to inherit a room from the fifties and have to sort through and make sense of it. Because I would just want to go all Gordon Ramsey and wipe it all out, this is terrible, and set it all on fire and just start fresh.

Because it is so much to dig through and then there’s all that, I don’t know, not attachment, but you feel guilty about throwing things away because of that scarcity mindset. So you keep things just in case. And it’s like, I don’t know. I guess my goal in all of this and with the community and our theme is to give teachers permission to throw it out. It is okay to throw it out.

It’s okay to get rid of stuff.

And if it’s recyclable and you have access to that, then great, do that. But if you don’t, don’t feel bad about that. If you can donate it to another art teacher that can use it, great. But if you can’t, that’s okay too. Whatever you can handle, whatever your capacity is for cleaning out, set that five minute timer, do whatever you got to do. It’s okay. We’re all just like a work in progress here. So that’s my closing statement.

No, I love it. I love it. So well said. And yeah, I appreciate that. Well, Jen, thank you for coming on and sharing some stories and chatting with me, I really appreciate it. And we’ll see you over in the community.

Woohoo, for sure.

All right. Thank you to Jen. And again, I would love to encourage you to do a little bit of cleaning before the month of April is over. Are there a couple of things you can throw out, a couple of things that maybe you don’t need anymore? Getting rid of them might be worth it. Now, I will link to the art room makeover on YouTube if you want to check that series out. And of course, we would love to have you join the community and join in the discussion there. We’ll link to the community in the show notes. We’ll also link to the specific discussion about strange things that we’ve found. So come tell us the weirdest thing you have found in your art room or your supply closet. We would love to have you as part of the discussion. We would love to see you there.

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Please be sure to subscribe so we can join you again. And if you love the show, please jump over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen, give us a five-star rating and maybe even leave us a review. We are also taking questions now for the May mailbag coming up in just a couple weeks with Amanda. So if you have any questions about the end of the school year, wrapping things up, what you want to do over the summer, end-of-the-year art shows, any of those things, we would love to hear them. Email podcasts@theartofeducation.edu or timothybogatz@theartofeducation.edu. We’re looking forward to hearing from you and seeing what questions you have.