As a young, wide-eyed college student, I walked into my first drawing class expecting to learn about pencil techniques, anatomy or at the very least, why the recommended art paper for the course cost me $14.34 a sheet. Instead, my classmates and I came face to face with an energetic drawing instructor with a rather unique teaching method. Our first assignment? Make marks on paper. It was a simple enough request until she added the following restrictions… no pencil, pen, ink, chalk, paint or other material from our art kits could be used.

Dumbfounded and somewhat terrified, I (along with my peers) sat frozen - convinced that our professor was probably in need of a leave. Several arguments and many minutes later, one lone student stood up, threw his paper on the ground and proceeded to cough up a good amount of saliva. He then bent down, scooped up some dust and dirt from the cement floor, and carefully smeared the stuff on his spit soaked paper.

Disgusted and confused, I stared at the event and began contemplating what a career in music education might be like. Looking toward the door, I was somehow not shocked to hear my drawing teacher say, "Bravo!"

Though I didn't know it at the time, (how could I?) that one small act changed the way I would forever think about and view art.

Looking at a saturated mud picture in drawing 101 didn't make me like realistic portraits or harmonious landscapes any less... on the contrary. What it did do however, was help me to realize that fine art is not only paintings or drawings that look "right", nor is it simply sculptures which are executed in a "correct" manner. It also helped me to see that problem solving - in this case, creating marks on paper without traditional drawing tools - is a large part of artmaking. In other words, when you look at a work of art, you should never dismiss (or underestimate) the process the artist went through to get to the final stage...