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Team Building Art Jamming – Why go Creative?

Art Jamming has seen a recent rise in popularity as a choice for Team Building activities within management heads of corporate organizations. Team building sessions are organized by management leaders in an effort to build rapport amongst the team in hopes of encouraging a friendlier work environment that produces better productivity. Art studios and schools offer team building art jamming sessions for company teams. Aside from art classes, art studios now offer Art Jamming sessions in their studios for individuals to enjoy a single session of creative time relaxing with art making. Art Jamming team building is usually done in a few ways depending on the purpose of the team bonding. Therapeutic, relaxation intended sessions usually involve each participant creating their individual piece of art while rapport building session are usually done via creating a big mural with everyone’s combined efforts.

What are the charms of art jamming that make it so attractive to team leaders?

Art is Therapeutic

team building activities

Whether done individually or as a team, art making has therapeutic effects on ones emotional and mental well being. In our extremely fast paced country, work life is stressful and often we forget how to relax. Art Jamming allows you to be immersed in creating art and makes you forget about the weight of work life as you occupy yourself with painting beautiful brush strokes and mixing colours on your palette. Imagine the smooth and silky brush strokes of Chinese Ink painting as the ink flows across the paper or the vibrant colours of acrylic painting blooming across your canvas. One should feel a weight off their shoulders, reduced stress and be able to think clearer and calmer as the mind is stimulated and refreshed through the session. Seeing the artwork that you created with your own efforts also has a mood lifting effect and boosts self esteem.

It is important that the mental and emotional health of a team is given attention to as poor mental and emotional health are detrimental to the productivity and rapport of a team. Stressed and tired employees may be distracted with issues and are unable to focus on the task at hand. Poor relationships between co-workers due to weak communication as a result of unresolved emotional stressors can make the workplace unhealthy and unpleasant. Helping employees better manage their stress often allows them in be in a better state of mind and hence they communicate with each other better and are able to think clearly and stay alert, sharp and focus on tasks.

Art can boost Self Esteem

art jamming activities

Building on the last point mentioned above, Art Jamming sessions provide a healthy environment for everyone to feel good about doing art. Art jamming sessions are done as leisure activity and hence there is no pressure to produce exceptional art, no one will critic your artwork, most people who go for Art Jamming are not professionally trained in art and everyone is there together to have a good time regardless of artistic skills. This healthy and encouraging environment allows you to be yourself and understand yourself better as you go through the thought processes of creating art. By understanding oneself, one can learn to express him/herself through art and learn to set personal goals that are within your achievable range and when one achieves those goals,there is a sense of accomplishment and self esteem improves. There is value in the process of making art, learning new skills helps them to believe in their capability to learn. They can express themselves and in the process accept themselves and learn to cope with their insecurities in a healthy way.

In a team building setting, when the team accomplishes achievements together, there is a sense of togetherness and they believe that they are capable of working together as a team and that the team is a capable one. This boosts the team’s esteem as a whole and encourages them to view themselves in a positive light. Teams and individuals who have better self esteem generally work better and are able to keep composed, perform better under stress and are more motivated as they have the confidence and vigour to get tasks done efficiently and effectively. A team that believes that they can achieve something is more likely to put in the effort and are willing to work hard to achieve those goals. Team members also get to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and learn to work with each other in a non critical environment. Providing recognition

Improved Social Bonding

team building activities

The goal of team building is to foster better relationships between co workers, Art Jamming sessions provide an avenue for co workers to gather together and indulge in a creative activity together. When presented with the challenge of completing the artwork, having co workers around to discuss and bounce ideas off each other has a uniting effect in which everyone is working together to overcome the same challenge, this gives everyone a common subject to relate to and they perceive each other to be in the same group. Because of the previously mentioned therapeutic nature of art, the Art Jamming experience allows them to have positive experiences together which further promotes rapport between participants. Through brainstorming of the design for the mural, participants get to reflect on their image as a group and how they want to develop and portray that image. The idea is that the participants come to view themselves as a united group, and learn to function like one. If team members are better aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, they would have better coordination, collaboration and teamwork.

More Effective Communication Skills

team building art jamming

It is important that information within a organization is relayed effectively, for this to be achieved, effective communication between co-workers is necessary to ensure that the information being relayed is clear, accurate and interpreted easily. Communication skills are strengthened via interacting with others and learning from those experiences, it is important that coworkers get interaction with each other to understand how each other conveys and processes information presented to them, this allows them to learn how to present their message in an effective manner that works for each other in the future when communicating.

Art is a great platform to initiate these conversations between coworkers, making art has many conversation starters that can lead to deeper discussions. Do you like this colour? Did you do art before? You should try this! I like this about your art! Deeper conversations tend to lead to more abstract conversations and as such encourages the individual to present their abstract information clearly and concisely. It is a little bit of a challenge to tell someone about an abstract concept you like such as dualism for example, the challenge and learning points lies in how to explain the concept effectively to the other party so that they understand the concept you are trying to tell them about.

Good Working Relationships

A welcoming work environment that employees can arrive at feeling good everyday is essential to keeping your staff mentally happy and healthy. The main factor of the work environment is the people there, it is important that the employees are on good terms with each other so as to ensure that everyone can be comfortable and feel safe. Good working relationships are correlated to good communication, higher productivity and happier employees as the coworkers act as a important support system for each other emotionally and practically. In dealing with stressors at work, having a coworker that one can comfortably talk to about their feeling and problems can be a great coping mechanism for employees.

Visual Arts Centre offers a variety of Art Jamming sessions for you and your team! Customized to your needs and objectives, you can choose from Acrylic Painting, Chinese Ink Painting and Watercolour Painting. Choose between an introspective personal artwork each or a combined piece where everyone works together to create a big mural or scroll to show off your teamwork! Visual Art Centre can hold our Team Bonding sessions at our Art Studio and Gallery space or at other spaces including your company’s own office space!

Interested to organize an Art Jamming session for your team?

Contact us now at 6255 0711/ 6733 2155 or drop us an email at [email protected]! 

Do remember to leave us with details such as, number of people, dates, location and preferred mediums!

We look forward to seeing you and your team soon!

 

 

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