Art is self-expression…communication beyond the tools and media used for that expression. Art is the purpose of teaching.
So, what is art?
Art is creative expression using media such as paint, ink, charcoal, water colors on canvas, paper, brick?
Art is imaginative use of sound that is produced from instruments, voice, percussion?
Art is plying and shaping clay, stone, wood, plastic, cement, iron, glass?
Art is teaching
The Experience of Art
What is the experience of art?
Art must communicate. Whether that communication is to an audience, to a class or to viewers who, 325,000 years in your future, travel from all parts of the globe to view scenes that you create on a cave wall.
Art is communicating across the Internet to billions of people, or to a special someone with a love poem.
Art also must be experienced by its creator. Creating art is fun, joyful, exciting. Creating art allows its creator to sidestep the feeling of time and to span the barriers of space and culture.
In some ways, art is love.
Art is expressive and transcendent. Art communicates…even across time and space.
And, art is the birthright, the innate ability, the capacity of every person.
The Creation of Art
Art flows.
Sometimes art floods, surges. Sometimes art trickles and seeps.
But, art is an "inside-out" process.
Art always comes from within…whether from conscious, unconscious or higher consciousness regions of our being.
Fabrications, computer creations and natural phenomena are not art. A crystal or snowflake are not art. Art is personal, and carries the stamp of the persona that created it.
No person can create the art of another. And for its time and skill level, each work of art is the perfect expression of that person. Art is like a fingerprint, a signature…like DNA.
How Art Goes Astray
Art is natural and self-rewarding. Art is sufficient unto itself.
But, art goes astray when one person tries to copy the expression of others. When this happens, art ceases and imitation begins.
Imitation art fails to express and communicate. Imitation art may seem pleasing to eye, pleasant to ear, prideful to own. But imitation art is the hollow facade. the soulless copy, a ridicule of the real.
The Purpose of Teaching Art
The purpose of teaching art to children is to give voice to their self-concept and to help them out-picture their self-esteem.
Students are taught art, not as a way to control their voice and improve the quality of their products, but as a way to discover and express who and what they truly are.
Of course, some teachers focus upon the form and function of the expression, rather than the expression itself. In doing so, they perform a disservice to their students, and they rob others of the benefit of linking to the person of that student…either in the now, or in a time closer or farther in the future from now.
Sidebar
The one area that we have yet to discover a method for art communication is with the past. That is, we do not know of a means of sharing artistic expression with folks in the past. Art communicates to the now, and to the future.
The Art of Teaching
Teaching is art. Teaching is the teacher's self-expression, therefore, great teaching must be artistic teaching.
And, as caring, love and respect for students merges with class content; unique and creative ideas flow, moment by moment, from teacher to student.
The Master Teacher is a performer. Whether a conductor, musician, singer, dancer or actor.
And there is an energy that passes between the Master Teacher and the apprentice students.
Content is imparted, but ideals and images are inculcated in full measure.
The Master Teacher responds to students, the communication is two-way, and students and teacher are in rapport. Artistic communication is congruent, with communicator and recipient in congruent interaction.
The delivery of the lesson, and the learning of the lesson are also timeless.
Teacher and students loose track of time, and interruption and schedule requirements are disappointments. Attempts to capture and recreate that particular artistic experience fail.
The best that can be attained is to create and express new art anew, with each successive lesson.
There is no capturing and bottling teaching as art.
A new day, a different subject, students sitting in different places…there is no going back. There is only a new creation, a new expression…new art.
Teaching is high-level self-expression, and high-level art. Learn to prize the artist that you are.
And learn to accept and enjoy the self-expressions of your students.
It is amazing how the subtle artistry of teaching has such a solid and concrete impact on the learning of your students.
