These fundamentals of material agency and relational materialism (Taguchi, 2011) have held true throughout all of the materials I experienced during my art encounters, as you will see as you explore this padlet inquiry. The interactions between myself and the other participating actors elicited a range of responses in me: for example, Paper in collaboration with Dog, Child, Scissors and Balloon, gave me confidence. They buoyed me when I was unsure how to proceed and inspired me. In the case of my encounter with Junk, the sculpture itself at one point toppled over and seemed to be actively trying to deny my feelings of freedom just as I was beginning to feel giddy with them, but this led to me becoming more assertive. In the case of the light artscape, the materials, and the particular way they cast the light as we moved them, suddenly brought into focus a new way of seeing light as play. Myself and the two children imagined something new at exactly the same time,  which was a very affecting shared experience. 
In these small but meaningful ways, each art encounter has  revealed parts of myself to me. I hope you enjoy looking at and listening to the artefacts that emerged.

I set this up in the lemon tree in the garden as a central music making instrument I could play, while immersed in the natural soundscape around me. The ribbons holding the spanners are my daughter’s hair ribbons and I liked the idea that she was 'letting her hair down" somewhere as I played along with the sounds of chickens, birds and at one point, thunder and raindrops. I also tapped on the tree branch with a stick. This was a joyful and liberating encounter.

I love this question from Pauline Oliveros (2001) which asks, “What if you could hear the frequency of colours?” I think this would be a wonderful question to ask children while they are listening in any rich soundscape, such as in a park or at the beach. This would get their creative ideas flowing and could be approached from two perspectives: 
1) Encouraging children to imagine and paint the images and colours that a piece of music or soundscape inspires for them, or 
2) Have them try to create their own sounds or rhythms to echo the feelings they have when they see different colours.  A great book for this second option is Colour Me by Ezekiel Kwaymullina (above) as it richly evokes each colour of the rainbow with text and images. Children could be encouraged to create their own instruments to match a particular colour, and then play them in turn as a group along with the book reading. 

Another favourite comment I read from Oliveros (2001) is her description of listening as being “a necessary pause before meaningful action”. This can be interpreted in so many ways especially in term of this Inquiry into Freedom. Firstly, as a teacher I read it as offering freedom to the child’s voice, meaning that when we listen to children we are pausing to understand their true intentions, before we can act in the best ways to help them learn. Secondly, in terms of implications for the classroom, it could mean that children are encouraged to listen to the sounds of nature with pause to act upon an emerging spiritual connection to the land and subsequent environmental awareness, perhaps in some form of environmental activism (O'Brien, 2016). 

I was just about to add arms when sadly, at this point, there was a disruption to my assumed control of the process, and the instability of JunkLady caused her to topple off the table and smash her lights. I almost felt real pain. I fought back the discouragement, refused to accept defeat and lifted her up again. I dusted her down, and spruced her up, and even added some dancing arms. Yes, she would probably fall down again in a future stiff breeze but for now, she was rocking it. The parallels were not lost on me!
This artwork for me, represents freedom from my own perceived limitations of what I can achieve through art. I now know better than to just accept limits, whether imposed by myself or others. 

All of these encounters with different materials have revealed something of myself to me and this has been a revelation. In every instance I have become more aware of my senses and of the world around me and each time this has felt like a spiritual awakening; an unlocking of my mind and thus, a form of freedom, as my ideas are set off in multiple unexpected directions. This is referred to as ‘rhizomatic flow’ by Deleuze and Guattari (1987). 

Freedom from constraints
As educators we need to be aware of these multiple possibilities in our children's art and try and prepare the room for every eventuality, rather than preparing for a constricted predetermined set of art outcomes. We must intentionally teach the arts in the broadest sense and offer a wide range of experiences to the children. This may be challenging within time and space constraints but is what must be done to truly offer artistic freedom to the children. I can only begin to imagine how beneficial these experiences would be for children in terms of their growing awareness of a sense of self and their emotions, as well as their appreciation for the natural world.

I now firmly believe that children should be given complete  freedom to experiment, play, explore and push boundaries with the materials offered to them; that they should be free to mix and co-opt techniques and materials in ways that may be unconventional and messy.

Freedom of time and flow
Young artists should be focussed on their experience and the exploration of tools and materials, not on the passage of time. By keeping their artwork free from deadlines, and giving them ample opportunities to come back to their work later, children can feel calm and relaxed as they create.

Freedom from disadvantage
Art and music and nature are levellers in that children can communicate through them in a shared language.  Polysensorial experiences like the ones I have explored here can be accessed with relatively limited budgets and can bridge diversity within a group and promote equity.

Freedom of the unknown

Finally, I have elucidated the mystery factor that has kept me so engrossed in these encounters during this unit, ever since my first encounter with Paper. It is the element of  surprise that has hit me every time at some point in each process when I have discovered something new, either about the materials or about myself. In the classroom I will endeavour to provide the rich environment necessary to help children experience this feeling of wonderment while they too encounter materials. This will in time enable them to project their emotions through metaphors and symbols and thereby communicate their lived experiences (Wright, 2015). 

 

·   The brightness of lights like in these rayboxes is in such sharp contrast to the darkness of the room that it calls children to attention (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2015). Darkness is necessary for the encounter with light to be optimal. The two children and I were so lost in our play with light in the darkness that when someone opened our garage door to see where we were and let in the daylight, all three of us called out in unison “Shut the Door!!” which made us all giggle and feel very connected to each other for that moment. Darkness would have to be planned in advance in a classroom context, maybe by blocking out windows with black paper or utilising store rooms and cupboards. Like the experience of silence, children need time to become accustomed to being comfortable with darkness. We can teach them that being in that space where there is less sensory stimulation can often awaken an internal voice.

·   By providing accessory boxes of small perspex prisms, coloured filters, lenses and small mirrors, children can generate patterns of light and move them, direct them and transform them in countless ways to create multiple scenarios like those above. As happened in my light explorations, once children have built up a relationship with light and learnt a little of its magical ways, then small toys can be added to the environment, allowing children to extend upon their narratives. This can also lead to shadow puppet shows, dramatic play and more, extending the social aspect of this encounter.