History Repeats...Again and Again...How to Participate?

“Anyone who can learn to write, can learn to draw.” ~John Gadsby Chapman 1847

Identity of an art educator.  It’s a jacked-up, ever-liquid, state of consciousness!

Identity of an Artist..Liquid and Changing...Adaptive

As I sort out who I will be as an art educator post-graduation, I find myself looking for heroes and advocates as I continue reading A History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social currents in Teaching the Visual Arts by Arthur D Efland (1990). So far I feel I have singled out some familiar complications that existed thousands of years ago within the question of whether or not formal arts education held a place in society. They are very similar to the questions and challenges still being fought by modern arts educators. As I said in my last post, albeit unfortunate that society has still not worked it out how much we have to gain from art practice, advocacy and education, I am glad to know that the challenge that seemed so daunting to me: bringing art to the unaware, inexperienced, and even uninterested parties who hold such down and negative opinions of art to hold it as a as vital to education and a healthy expressive life…has in fact been going on forever and is no longer on my list of problems to solve in my lifetime. Whew! Now that that is behind me I feel I can participate in this advocacy with passion that is easy going and inviting to all rather than feeling I have to make a “hard sell” so to speak every time I talk to someone about art. I need to get back to creating art and celebrating how it makes me feel and inviting others to share in that experience. Many of these early art educators had minimal art backgrounds themselves. For example, Pestalozzi had no knowledge of drawing, yet he found a way to connect its practice to something he was knowledgeable about (geometry) and built upon that knowledge to support a widely accepted means to educate others how to draw (78).

Pestalozzi, Krusi, and Whitacre all developed systems that revolved within their own strengths and abilities concerning how to draw. I think that it is important to recognize that what these men did was take what they knew, what they were good at, and developed systems of learning for others to integrate into their practice of art. I feel they overthought it in some cases. For example when Joseph Neef took Pestalozzian drawing and reduced it to a more formalized, standard procedure (85), I feel he killed what little experimentation this method allowed. But it seems this is what we do. We take a method and fine-tune it until what was great and inspiring about the original theory has been reduced to a boring, standardized “correct” way. All in the name of "educating the masses." It is amusing, but also sad to read how this happens over and over again in education. Look at today's struggles with standardization. We truly do kill creativity and critical thinking by delegating "appropriate" and "correct" methods of learning. Why do we feel the need to compartmentalize such a thing? 

The failure of the American textile market during the economic recession corresponding to the Civil War springboarded a need for art education - drawing in particular – that could aid with technical/industrial drawing used for advancement of technology during the industrial revolution. It seems to me the art educatior pioneers in this era seized the opportunity to use the acknowledged need for drawing instruction to escort in art education in general. Much like the observation I made in methods class last semester: an artist can take what "the system" says they have to have and use those criteria to encompass whatever goal they in fact held themselves...meaning we can usually take whatever lesson we want to teach and present it in such a fashion that satisfies whatever checklist of "standards" our superiors demand us meet. Tricky, sneaky art teachers...that darn critical thinking at work again! Walter Smith did this. He viewed the term “industrial” as not only connected to works needed for the factories, but also as the “virtue of industriousness,” which he communicated in his instruction as emphasis turned to science, seen as “accuracy of perception” in neatness and precision (102) and elevated the focus on learning to draw with accruacy. 

Though in general, I do see some similarities in the efforts and obstacles arts educators of these early days faced with those faced by my peers and myself. It also seems during this time the acceptance of craft and functional art such as textiles, pottery, and home crafts began to be identified as more like housework rather than art. Housework that was also identified primarily with subordinate females. I question how much effect the abundance of women able to create works of arts and crafts influenced the majority opinion of whether the trade of art be worth associating with the formal educations of (then primarily) men. Even in my class, women outnumber men. I’ve known many talented and worthy male art educators in my experience, but it does seem that I have observed an abundant population of women interested, practicing, and advocating the arts and I can’t help but ponder if that has inhibited its advancement in society over the years. It does seem the more liberal communities, those more open to cultural diversity, are able to promote and celebrate the arts more readily than conservative communities such as my own. Is is partialy due to the high female population of the discipline? Perhaps that is projecting and I have no proof to back it up,  but I am curious how the arts would be regarded if they were a male-dominated discipline comparable to athletics, outdoor sports, or racing…would art enjoy the spotlight more if it were?