How Important is Art Education?

Please forgive me while I stand on my soap box for a bit today.

I never wear shoes like this but maybe I should :0)

It's that time of year again. Your kids have either already started back to school or they will be there shortly. Does your child's school still have an art program? More and more schools across the nation are eliminating arts and music programs. If they replace them with anything at all it is sometimes with pseudo art instruction performed by an unqualified classroom teacher.

That statement is not meant to disparage classroom teachers, it is just that they are not trained arts specialists.  The major justification for ending arts programs is almost always budget. School districts are constantly complaining that they don't have a enough money for basic programs, so first on the chopping block is usually what administrators and parents see as the most extraneous and unnecessary programs- art and music.

Here are some of the common myths and justifications for deeming art as unnecessary and thereby eliminating it.

Every child is not a talented artist
Every child is not going to be an artist
Training children in the arts has no application to real world (job) success
Art is meant to help children "express themselves"

Here is what arts education really gives to your kids:

The number one most valuable thing that art education provides to your child:

It teaches them to THINK critically and innovate. It teaches them to TAKE RISKS and to see the BIG PICTURE.

Making art is not just about making pretty things or providing some slapdash approach to "self expression" devoid of rules and structure. There are rules in art- Elements and Principals of Design- which provides a framework for making good art and once understood, provides a vehicle for creating good art while breaking those rules and learning to innovate.

Art history provides a cultural framework and point of reference for history and innovation throughout time. Children without skill in creating art are still given an understanding of the cultural heritage of art, get exposed to great thinkers and artistic creators (ex. Picasso, Matisse) who broke from the mold of realistic art making to devise a new way of SEEING and creating.

Art is not always about the end product. The value of art education is more in the processes of creating art and learning about it than in the outcome of making a pretty picture.

Most other disciplines only work on finding right or wrong answers. There is no room for thinking out of the box or for creating a new paradigm. Children who are only being educated in these limiting disciplines will grow to only seek the correct (predetermined) answer, never being able to consider another option and will accept as irrefutable that which is spoon fed to him as fact.

We need to keep raising generations of Picasso's, Da Vinci's, Van Gogh's, Louise Nevelsons and even more Andy Warhol's, whose art was not just pictures of Campbell Soup cans, but a shrewd commentary on our massed produced society as a whole, a concept seen through an artists ability to view "the big picture."

Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson- Royal Tide IV-Assemblage

The world needs both kinds of thinkers, both right brain and left. Here is a perfect example:

Steve Wozniak, a left brain tech head computer guy who, left on his own would probably have had his own small company or gone to work for IBM or Microsoft or Oracle or any other computer giant out there at the time.

Steve Jobs, a hippy dippy, right brain college drop out with an understanding of business,training in art and a devoted sense and love for beauty and good design.

It is the combination of these two very different types of talents that brought us all of the elegant and beautiful Apple computer products which many of us enjoy and other companies try to emulate.

The marriage of these two divergent genius brains resulted in something of a lightening strike which created (in my opinion) one of the greatest tech companies ever.

Steve Jobs (standing) and Steve Wozniak (at keyboard)

Is your kid going to be the next Steve Jobs or Picasso or Frida Kahlo? Maybe not. If given the benefit of a meaningful art education, what they can be is a well rounded human being who can think outside of the box, challenge the status quo, consider various answers to the same problem, create something from nothing, use the tools at hand in new ways and make cross cultural and historical connections.

Oh, and they may come home with a nice painting sometimes, too.

Frida and Me- © Karen O'Lone-Hahn 

My studio essentials

Every studio needs it's basic equipment for whatever it is that you're making. In my studio it is my pottery wheel,my bats, clay and assorted tools. I also have to have shelving to put items on both items in process and finished items. I  have to have my easel, paints brushes and good lighting.

Beyond that there are a few things that enhance the process and just make for a better creative experience. In my case, the outside has as much to do with it as the inside. I love the happy colors that I had my daughter paint on the outside. The yellow, green and purple  greet me with a feeling of perpetual spring, even when we are buried in snow.

My studio is basically a 12 x 20' Amish shed that came to us bare-bones and unfinished studs on the inside. My husband and I finished it with drywall,insulation, flooring etc. We made the ceiling Cathedral which gives the small space a feeling of having more room than it actually does.We added track lighting to shift around the room to light paintings on the wall and I ordered extra windows in the back and large rounded windows on the doors. My window boxes were an essential for me. The flowers that I add them to each spring add a homey touch and contribute to the happy feeling of the exterior.

Inside, some of my must-haves are my little portable speaker which hooks up to my iPhone and plays my music as loud or as quietly as I am in the mood for. This replaces my iHome which stopped supporting my iPhone about two generations ago.




I also have my cute little red IKEA couch for those times when I just need a break or a place to sit and gestate ideas or a home base to wrap and write up orders during open studio.



My coffee pot is essential. I guess I shouldn't called it a pot anymore now that we have Keuregs. We used to be very anti-Keureg in this family because of the waste of all the little k-cups but my husband relented last Christmas and got me a small one for my studio. I have to say that I absolutely love it and the coffee that it makes is just the best. Aside from McDonald's, I don't think there's anywhere that I get it as piping hot. I keep a small refrigerator in my studio though I'm not sure that it's an essential except for during open studio when I put cheeses and fruit in there to keep from one day to the next.  I do also keep some cold beverages like seltzer and beer and soda for studio visitors.

My two other essentials, or maybe I should say three, are my window air conditioner which I absolutely cannot be without in the summer and in the winter I am kept warm with two electric space heaters.



It depends on the temperature whether I need to run both heaters or not, but this winter, given our many days of temperatures below freezing, I had to keep them both running 24/7 to prevent my clay from freezing and rendering it all unusable.




I bought a handy little thermometer which keeps me apprised of such things and therefore is an indispensable studio item. My little wooden figure which stands next to the thermometer, is sometimes helpful when painting people, but he doesn't bend too much so he just hangs around a lot to remind me that I am indeed and artist.

My little "create" sign, a gift from my daughter, serves a similar function, reminding me to get going and do what God intended for me.

  Not sure it's essential, but the Frida Kahlo flower head band that I made last Halloween, is fun to have around and wear when I'm throwing or painting because it feels like I am channeling some mystical creative juice from artists like Frida who came before me. Plus, I just like to be silly sometimes.

Lastly, is what I call my "wall of validation". On it hangs ribbons and plaques that I was awarded over the years from various art shows. I keep it there to look at when I am stuck for ideas, when something isn't going right and I am convincing myself that I stink as an artist, or during those lonely times of creating in my solitary space, it reminds me that someone thinks that what I do is OK and maybe I should just keep going :0)