This edition of Quotes from the Field (see previous posts) features a selection of inspiring quotes from artists and art practitioners. Similar to the previous posts, I annotate and analyze each quote within the framework of art education. The common thread that exists among each of these quotes, is the idea that the arts are not just necessary for artists. Art is a universally important discipline for building and expressing well-rounded social, emotional and cognizant behaviors.
“People ask me, ‘Don’t you ever run out of ideas?’ Well, in the first place, I don’t use ideas. Every time I have an idea, it’s too limiting and usually turns out to be a disappointment. But I haven’t run out of curiosity.”
– Robert Rauschenberg
Rauschenberg’s work, which combines media (i.e. painting, sculpture and installation) and defies traditional art categorization (i.e. his collaborations with scientists, engineers and technologists), is a great example of how explorations lead to discoveries, which subsequently provide insightful and efficacious results. The process is cyclical. The arts help us to address a myriad of circumstances in life that often do not have definitive formulas, rules or regulations. In art education, we use the term “artistic habits of mind” or “studio habits of mind,” to reference a variety of concepts and actions that educators aim for their students to develop and hone while they are making, viewing and discussing works of art.
One of the key lessons and skills we learn from artistic engagement is being able to think and respond to situations with a plurality of ideas and processes; and not to get stifled when one idea or course of action goes awry. Arts educator and pedagogical theorist, Judith Burton calls this quality “resistance to closure.” This essentially means thinking with an open mind and depicting a multitude of meaning and possibilities through aesthetic forms and artistic experiences (Burton, 2000). Arts educator and theorist Elliot Eisner called this aforementioned phenomena “making judgements in the absence of rules,” which he describes as a process that teaches us to act and evaluate based on intuition, critical thinking and paying close attention to nuances and other gradual or minute, yet fundamental details, within a work of art. Evaluating the consequences of our choices on a tangible, intellectual and emotional level is how we act in the absence of rules. Sometimes we have to revise our initial objective and make other choices. This is a sequence that becomes well apparent via the artistic process. Eisner explains that, “artists and all who work with the composition of qualities try to achieve a ‘rightness of fit’” (Eisner, 2002), which means that a combination of explorations guided by intuition, deep observation and creativity will eventually lead to insightful breakthroughs, as well as an expansion of prior knowledge and experience.
Curiosity is what keeps us moving forward in all facets of life. It is the crux of the learning process, because without a compelling urge or strong desire to know or learn something, we would have very little motivation to quench our thirst for acquiring new information and skills. The framework of a process-centered education (i.e. constructivist education) is “learning through doing.” Ideas are fine, but the enduring understanding is that ideas alone will not provide tangible solutions or good works of art. Artistic thinking makes us adept at turning ideas into open-ended possibilities, through inquiry-based and explorative learning. Rauschenberg’s quote reflects this understanding, and also is indicative of how many professional artists utilize another core educational methodology called “backward design.” Backward design helps educators prepare their overall curriculum, while accounting for the flexibility and differentiation of instruction that is needed to ensure all their students have an equal opportunity to understand the course material. It also enables educators to perform better assessments of whether their instruction is effective. At its core, backward design prompts educators to consider the goals and assessments for learning before enacting on the creation and presentation of learning materials and activities. Arts educator Grant Wiggins (2016) who popularized the use of backward design, explains that, “understanding involves something beyond mere acquisition for later straightforward use. To understand, students must do something with, adapt, and sometimes question what they (think they) know.” This is the key tenet of curious-based (i.e. inquiry-based) learning. Letting curiosity inform an educational endeavor or creative practice is ideal because it makes learning and making akin to living purposefully and intentionally. It eschews and resists the didactic transfer of knowledge in favor of facilitating understanding and reciprocity.
“Art is for everyone”
– Keith Haring
Haring is renowned for integrating art and design into the very fabric of our everyday lives. He painted murals, designed clothing and collaborated throughout the arts and cultural fields to ensure that his visual expression and symbolic message was widespread.
This quote is simple, yet effective. And if you have been a long time reader of Artfully Learning, you will be familiar with the ways that art can inform and inspire how we live, learn and love in ways that transcend traditional art world circumstances. The sincere statement that “art is for everyone” is reflective of how artistic habits of mind can impact our lives both inside and outside of actual art related initiatives. Studio habits of mind bolster our proficiency for employing critical thinking, problem solving and creativity in everyday life situations. By incorporating artistic mindsets into our daily experiences, we are taking action that enables us to determine how we will live each day with intent and meaning, instead of waiting for these elements to reveal themselves (spoiler alert: they will not manifest themselves without active and cognitive participation). In 1898, author Oscar Wilde advanced the theory that “life imitates art” by asserting that, “the self-conscious aim of life is to find expression, and that art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy” (Wilde, 1898).
Art making is a fundamental part of humanity that lets diverse individuals express themselves, while also making connections and developing an understanding of other people’s lived experiences. Artistic immersion offers us the agency and ability to become active learners, expressive communicators and determined problem solvers. This is why including art as a core subject in schools is an obvious choice. As is making sure that the arts are well supported across society so that these results are extended after traditional education. Not everyone will or should become professional artists. However each of us can absolutely employ elements of artfulness in our daily lives in order to succeed in many circumstances beyond art making. The phrases “everyone is an artist”and “art is for everyone” are great mottoes that compel us to strive to live each day being mindfully intuitive and responsive to the world around us.
“We are no longer so sure that time flows in one direction only, at least not in art.”
– Isamu Noguchi
Put simply, art is timeless. We lose track of time when we are making art, as many of us artists can attest to. It is not a stretch to say that art transcends time at large, or at least its formal definition and quantitative measurements. Viewing works throughout the course of art history is as close to actual time travel as we have come. Art is not a fixated discipline that is beholden to the confines of one particular era, nor the rules and regulations of timekeeping. This is because the underlying aspects of art have not changed since it was first employed tens of thousands of years ago. We make art to understand and communicate our lived experience in a meaningful manner. While these experiences will clearly differ depending on numerous factors, the consistency lies in the fact that we share very crucial and fundamental behaviors and needs as those who lived decades, centuries and millennia before us.
As previously mentioned, art serves as both a metaphorical time machine and a way to tangibly reflect and revisit our past. Through artistic habits of mind and the art making process, adults can revisit their childlike nature (see: “Fun enough for kids, but made for adults“). Art also enables us to spend our time purposefully by enabling us to live meaningfully in response to the present moment (see: “Timelessly Artful”). Being enveloped in art can slow down, speed up and even reverse traditional notions of time.
The concept of timelessness and non-lineal motion is also evident with regards to how we develop artistic habits of mind. While artistic development follows a progression of skills and behaviors, the way in which we obtain and hone these facets is more indicative of multidimensional and multilinear framework than a linear path or stages. Children and also adult newcomers to art develop via a multidimensional model (see: “The Fein Art of Artistic Development”), rather than rigid linear progression. This means that it is possible for those building artistic skills and habits of mind to exhibit stronger cognitive, physical or creative abilities before some of their other peers. One thing that we know from developmental psychology and education, is that we hone and exhibit specific qualities and skills due to a combination of both formal education and life experience. Some of these instincts are intrinsic and flourish with education and experience, while others are learned via traditional and experiential forms of education. This development happens at various points throughout our lives, so it is not accurate to measure our artistic development strictly within linear terms.
“I thought art was a verb, rather than a noun.”
– Yoko Ono
It is no surprise that Ono thinks this way, because her artwork is reliant on actions, participation and its ability to be reproduced and extended by present and future generations. If “life imitates art,” then art is a condition of living whereby we model our actions and behaviors around. Art can inform and communicate aspects of our identities, and project how we see ourselves and want others to perceive us.
Furthermore, a work of art, which is often an object (but can also be an experience i.e. performance art) is not a static entity. Art embodies the inquisitiveness, observations and emotions of both its maker(s) and subsequent viewers. Artists are known for referencing prior modes of art and historical concepts in their contemporary works of art. And each new viewer brings something novel and relevant to the work of art’s form, function, content and context. We often look at works of art through several different lenses, because part of analyzing art is to judge it in relation to what we know and are familiar with. For example, we see artworks of the past as historical, but also are inclined to identify or interpret patterns and connections between prior artistic representations and our own contemporary lives.
Therefore, art mirrors how a living organism exists because it continues to grow long after it has been created, and it evolves in tandem with the progression of the human condition. So when a work of art is released into the world it operates as a verb and not a noun, because it conveys an action, occurrence and state of being.
References, Notes, Suggested Reading:
Burton, Judith M. “The Configuration of Meaning: Learner-Centered Art Education Revisited.” Studies in Art Education, vol. 41, no. 4, 2000, pp. 330–45. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1320677. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023.
Eisner, Elliot W. 2002. “What Can Education Learn From the Arts About the Practice of Education?,” The Encyclopedia of Pedagogy and Informal Education’ https://infed.org/mobi/what-can-education-learn-from-the-arts-about-the-practice-of-education/ (Originally given as the John Dewey Lecture for 2002, Stanford University).
Louis, Linda. “What Children Have in Mind: A Study of Early Representational Development in Paint.” Studies in Art Education, vol. 46, no. 4, 2005, pp. 339–355. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25475761. Accessed 13 Jan. 2020.
Wiggins, Grant. You Have To Create Understanding By Design. Teaching Thought, 26 January 2016. https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/you-cant-teach-understanding/
Wilde, Oscar. The Decay of Lying in Intentions (1891)
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