Tag: arts

Child’s Play

Are there still parents out there focussed on firing up the imaginations of and nurturing their children’s artistic inclinations?

Does the school system still make room for developing the intuitive left brains of young people?

I am out of touch with how well children today are being set up for their lifelong search for actualization. But I do know funding for arts education has always been in peril.

North Americans seem to recognize the value of arts education, but obtaining consistent funding can be a different matter.

During my children’s years at high school, I lobbied to keep the arts coordinator on staff. Any arts educator fears budget cuts: dispensable, you know. Some people believe art is a frivolous pursuit and doesn’t prepare kids for the “real world.”

I oppose the assertion that arts are an education “add-on.” I believe talent and creativity need to be nurtured and developed.

While 88% of Americans agree that arts education is an essential component of a well-rounded education, there has been a persistent decline in support for arts education, particularly in communities that cannot finance it on their own.

In 2018, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences convened a Commission on the Arts…. The resulting report, Art for Life’s Sake: The Case for Arts Education, finds ample evidence for the attributes, values, and skills that come from arts education, including social and emotional development, improvements in school engagement, as well as more vital civic and social engagement. 

https://www.amacad.org/news/arts-education-report

Today’s political, social and economic reality often defies logic and sanity. There are a lot of days lately when the old adage has never been more apt: “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Even more apt: “No one can make this s— up.”

What an arts education teaches is discernment and analysis. Different ways of looking at a problem pr project. Today’s kids are going to need those skills when they grow up. When this generation takes over the world twenty years from now, let’s hope they have learned more complex skills than how to set up apps on their smartphones or record TikTok videos.

The artistic path has always been 10% inspiration and 90% inspiration. But let’s face it. Someone who has your back can grease the skids. A cheerleader who promotes and supports your creative ambitions (think arts patrons of old) is going to make your artistic path considerably easier. Perhaps even more meaningful and desirable.

We all need fellow travelers to validate and mirror us on our journey. That checks out whether you are an artist or not…. and we are all artists to varying degrees. We all long for and seek outlets for creative expression.

Would that every aspiring artist could be born into an arts-friendly environment like Marlon Brando. Would that every child with artistic ambition have similar luck on the home front.

Given how Brando turned out artistically, it’s hard to argue with the methods.

Alternatively pray the powers-that-be minding the arts purse see the wisdom of continued support for arts education as a line item. Not simply an afterthought.

“My mother’s name will only appear in texts or in conversations because she was my mother–the mother of a man who inexplicably became famous.

I want you to know, however, that my mother was a great artist, a powerful artist who poured creativity and ingenuity and brilliance into raising her children, infusing us all with imagination and the ability–with no paranormal influences–to remove ourselves, to lift our bodies and our minds, from locations and situations that were brutal.

That is art, and if we studied people like my mother, there would be shelves of books on her work with her children, her friends, her small circle of enchanted friends. Tennessee’s mother was like this. I bet yours is too.

“The artistic suicide is not only the drug-addicted actor; the alcoholic singer; the writer who makes bad choice after bad choice. Artistic suicide, like charity, begins at home. We kill the artists within ourselves in the quest to get by, to walk within the lines, to mind our manners.

“Write about that.”

–Marlon Brando/Interview with James Grissom

Are You A Hammer?

“When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

This quote is variously attributed to so many people that I wont attribute it to any. I prefer to play with what the concept might actually mean.

For some, it speaks to the narrow-mindedness of seeing only one use for a particular tool. There is something in there about opposites attracting and seeing something that the other needs. It can be argued that hammers and nails need each other to feel effective in the world.

There is also something in there about sticking to scripts we have internalized and faithfully observe. What we have learned. And in many areas of life, there are absolute “rights” and “wrongs” about how to do things.

Apply those hard-and-fast rules and success will be your reward. I find this particularly comforting when I’m flying. I like knowing that every pilot has been tested and approved by a very stringent set of standards on their skills and competence to fly the airplane.

This quote has also been interpreted to explain cognitive bias. Cognitive bias makes a mockery of so many academic pursuits. But can we apply the same formulae to artists and philosophers? The boundaries are much more blurry in these pursuits. Laws are at work that can best be described as fluid. Creative pursuits are more often informed by culture, zeitgeist, current affairs and spirituality, among others.

I should know. I have a masters in sociology. To this day, studying social groups requires a methodology that is hard to pin down with the traditional “scientific method.” It is more like a smorgasbord of journalism and keeping a diary. Indeed, the term “participant observer” was concocted as a methodology back in the day for what we would now likely call “embedding.”

That sticky bit of intellectual rationalization led to huge disclaimers assuring readers that the sociologists had gone to great lengths to ensure and preserve their objectivity. That strikes me as funny. Along the lines of “methinks the lady doth protest too much.” If sociologists were so sure that their research methods were pure and unsullied, disclaimers would not likely necessary.

As in the example above, it’s good to know that pilots are following a successful flying formula. The gap between engineering and arts has always been huge intellectually. Engineers – like pilots – learn skills based on certain immutable laws and forces. We count on them to do that.

It does seem we all have certain built-in competencies. Maths ability over writing ability is a common example. But when we only stick to what we know and pursue only those areas where we are sure we can excel, growth stops. Without the natural human tendency to explore and keep trying out new ideas, the world would be bereft of innovation.

We often end up balancing two opposing forces in our lives: the comfort of the familiar or the excitement (and danger) of pursuing new challenges. Maturity informs us which path to pick when usually because we have already screwed up in this regard a few times.

And there is always that great X factor: the unknowns of pursuing a particular path and the general uncertainty of the future.

So which are you? A hammer, a nail or something else entirely. Are you locked into stale and outdated ways of thinking and acting that aren’t moving you forward in the direction you want to move? I think about this periodically. I haven’t actually decided which one I am.

Certainly in recent months, I have moved well beyond almost any of my known patterns and ways of being. It’s stressful, for sure, but also satisfying. It has been the price I have had to pay for any new skill, experience, accomplishment or romance in my life.

They didn’t all work out the way I wanted, obviously, but they all expanded my worldview and understanding every single time. That seems like a fair tradeoff for the inherent risks in following unfamiliar paths. I think I’ve learned enough to modulate my chances whatever path I take.

So there’s that.