40 Facts About Florence Cane

Florence Cane was a notable American art educator whose ideas influenced the field of art therapy.

Florence Cane was the second oldest of four children, and was described as having an outgoing and lively disposition.

Florence Cane's sister Margaret Naumburg was a pioneer of American art therapy.

Florence married Melville Cane and had twin daughters Katherine and Mary.

Florence Cane experienced discrimination, which led her to join women's rights groups.

Florence Cane's husband was supportive of her intellectual and social reform interests.

Florence Cane was a follower of Gurdjieff, who regarded "dance, music, movement, innovative group work and writing" as modes of expression and self-awareness.

Naumburg invited Florence Cane to teach at Walden, an experimental, progressive project, around 1920.

In 1936, Florence Cane became the director of art at the Counseling Center for Gifted Children of the School of Education at New York University, mainly working with intake portfolios for applicants.

Florence Cane believed that the movement beyond the typical stationary range would invoke the artwork with more meaning.

Florence Cane referred to these as human powers "body, psyche, and mind" that cohesively worked in an individual's creative expression.

Florence Cane developed a scribble technique as "a kind of play with a freely flowing continuous line".

Florence Cane developed this exercise to foster imagination and unconscious imagery, similar to free association in psychoanalysis.

Florence Cane was trained under the psychoanalytic theoretical orientation and is the baseline to her expressive therapies approaches.

Florence Cane's integrated teaching approach involved emotional creativity and free association.

Florence Cane considered herself to be a psychologically-informed art teacher, not an art therapist.

Florence Cane believed that once symbols are made known to the art therapist-teacher, it can be easier to determine the child's issues and needs.

Florence Cane believed that this was the process of human development in expressive art therapy.

About her students, Florence Cane said, "My work with the children is based on the belief that almost any little child can learn to draw or paint as naturally as to speak or write".

Florence Cane reinforced the importance of developing and expressing identity through the creative process, and cautioned other adults with their interactions with creative children.

Florence Cane described adults as being more conventional and precise with expectations for the product to have a finished quality, while the child does not.

Florence Cane held the belief that Teachers are in charge of ensuring optimal conditions for creativity to flourish.

The conditions Florence Cane believed to be most favorable for children were white, bare walls; spacious, lighted rooms; and visible materials.

Later in her 1950 publication of The Artist in Each of Us, Florence Cane retracted the statement that studio walls should be bare suggesting walls should be adorned with children's artwork.

Florence Cane preferred crayons, chalks, tempera paint, and charcoal, believing these tools facilitated art that was "more broad and individual".

Florence Cane suggested the first art directive for any individual should involve a "full, balanced movement" such as throwing a ball or playfully producing lines.

Florence Cane believed that the students who were experiencing difficulties in academic, artistic, or behavioral areas were experiencing a block in one of her proposed three functions.

Florence Cane believed helping the students through this blocked area could get them to a broader range of expression and understanding.

Florence Cane discussed the fact that this improvement in function was consistent with significant improvements within such students' artwork.

Florence Cane found a way to break through the inertia and help the child get past the creative block.

One way Florence Cane got past the child's block, was by giving the child a previous, unfinished drawing.

Florence Cane would give a fearful child a simple art activity that was easily executed so that the child could feel satisfaction.

Florence Cane developed the scribble method as a way to get through the creative block and be satisfied with the artwork.

Florence Cane approached the children with inferiority pride in a different way.

Florence Cane noticed children with inferiority pride were afraid to create artwork that was less than perfect.

Florence Cane used art activities, like the scribble method, to give the children satisfaction in their artwork.

Florence Cane says "and who can tell but the artist himself what he means to do and how he is going to do it".

Florence Cane started the painting down by her feet, pushed the lines upward towards the sky, and then outward with both arms.

Florence Cane found that there was a heightened emotional connection for the external expression on a larger-scale.

Florence Cane found that larger paper allowed more freedom for movement through use of the whole body.