More Proof of the Value of Art in Education

Although most artists instinctively know how valuable a tool art is in all aspects of their life, helping in so many ways that don't seem directly connected with art-making, it is always interesting to have it "officially" confirmed.

The Guggenheim Museum in New York has just held a conference entitled "Thinking like an Artist: Creativity and Problem-solving in the Classroom". This is the culmination of a four-year research initiative focusing on the Art of Problem Solving, using arts education as a pathway to foster creativity and help problem-solving techniques. The U.S. Department of Education funded the study and conference.

The bottom line at the end of the study is that the Learning through Art instruction methods help in developing different skills: flexibility (the ability to rethink or revise one's plans when faced with challenges), the connection of means of achieving goals and the results achieved (the ability to assess the success of meeting the goals one had set out in the work of art) and resource recognition (the ability to identify additional materials that could be used to complete the project). Imagining, experimentation and self-reflection are other benefits mentioned in the study.

So, after four years and a million dollars spent, we can all know for certain what artists knew already: art is hugely helpful for problem-solving and general coping with life. An earlier study done under the same auspices had already confirmed that Learning through Art improved students' literacy and critical thinking. But as a result of these studies, more children might at least acquire more tools to prepare them for life if they have art incorporated into their curriculum. That would be really good.

Art and Meditation

I recently read a fascinating review in Art in America (April 2009) by Edward M. Gomez, entitled Altered States. It was a review of the just-closed exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum on "The Third Mind", which examined the influence of Asia on earlier generations of artists. Apparently, many of those artists meditated, a result of their interest in Buddhism. Their ability to pay attention to matters deemed "ordinary" and to be able to "suspend time" derived, it was thought, from their practice of meditation. Artists as diverse as Arthur Dove or John Cage were cited in the article.

Thinking about the role of meditation in my own experience made me realise that although I do indeed meditate, I find that the act of making art is in itself a form of meditation. Most artists I know find that time becomes a very variable affair, since we all lose track of time very easily when creating art. However, I also find that I become much more efficient at using the rest of my time, away from art, to do all the other daily chores when I am working on a painting or drawing. I wonder if that is a common occurrence? It is also easy to pay close attention to whatever art and subject of art I am involved with, although I don't know that I would attribute that aspect of art-making to the practice of meditation.

When I am not able to work as an artist, I find I get really dislocated, and so it is a relief to revert to mediation to make life more serene. Brain circuitry in artists must be predicated on a daily "fix" of art, apparently!

The rhythm of observation and creation, drawing and looking, is indeed addictive. Even when I find myself inside because of bad weather, as happened when I was Artist in Residence once at Wild Acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains, there is a meditative peace and serenity from trying to create harmony and yet accuracy in a silverpoint drawing. Even with the most humble of materials!

This was the result of two days of solid rain and yet I had little realisation of how much time elapsed during the execution of the drawing.

Blue Ridge Mountain Meditation, silverpoint 11 x 15" image, Collection of Evansville Museum of Arts, Science and History, Evansville, IN