If either one stops this process, it is over. The highest priority is for students to learn how to educate themselves as artists. My assignments are usually very tight and restricted at the start, but eventually they become open-ended. Students are encouraged to think and to find their own direction using the assignment as a guideline. This allows students to explore their imagination and allows me to teach them how to clarify their own ideas and to practice conceptual building skills.
Students are then able to search among a variety of solutions to one assignment.
I eventually get many different types of work that respond to the assignment. This helps us in two ways. First, we are able to talk about what we are looking at without any prejudice or bias from the artist. Second, we can train the eye to look at art and to articulate and discuss it in depth. In turn, the artist is able to learn both what the artwork communicates and how other people perceive the artwork.