Art is fundamental too

I had a great dinner conversation about art education last night with Marissa McClure (@marissamcclure, University of Arizona). I came away slightly shocked about how deficient my own view of it was as an art person and as a parent. Here's what I think I learned:

As a culture, we tend to believe that Art is a product of mysterious genius, a muse. So, when we see some kids as naturally artistic at an early age and some not, that's okay. We support the individual endeavors, the muses, of each. For those that draw, we provide supplies, time, direction and encouragement, and for those that don't, we find other activities. Makes sense, right?

But now think about reading. Like art, some kids take naturally to reading and some don't. And also like for art, we encourage the kids that have that natural interest and ability by providing them with more books, helping them with hard parts, and encouraging them with positive reinforcement. But for the kids that don't take naturally to reading, do we say, "Oh, it's okay that that these kids don't like to read, they can do something else instead."? Of course not, we teach them to read. They may not turn out to be good readers, and they may not ever particularly like reading, but that's okay. We at least give them the skills to do it before standing back and letting them to their own devices. 

We value reading as a fundamental part of our culture and so we teach it to our children. The same same goes for writing and math. It was Marissa's argument, and I believe it, that art is fundamental too.

During the course of our conversation, this realization came to me suddenly. Up to that moment, despite deep and continual interactions with art in my own life, I had been blindly in the "mysterious genius" camp when it came to my 4-year-old son. While I don't think of him as particularly artistic, save the occasional drawing of a rescue vehicle, it had never occurred to me that just as I encourage him to count, to correctly identify words on a page, and to write his name in capital letters, I should also encourage him to draw, and should give him the tools to do so. I had just thought, "Oh well, he's not artistic"!

Yes, great art may indeed be the product of a special genius, but art in general is not. Art in general -- call it the reading and writing of images -- should be a fundamental part of all our experiences. It should be something we have like we have the ability to read the headlines on a paper, or add the numbers on a receipt. It should, and it can, but we have to start somewhere, and best to start now.