THE ARTS & CREATIVE EXPRESSION

The purveyors of popular culture have done a spectacular job creating a version of American youth deeply connected with “the arts”; children and teenagers spend billions of dollars each year on films and music. 

Mostly, however, this connection with things “artistic” is purely an economic construct. Rather than an imaginative exploration of a created universe, most of the consumption of cultural products by young people in the industrialized world is the result of exhaustive market research and targeted content packaging. The mechanism is a brilliantly conceived convergence of a relatively affluent demographic (kids) with an ever-evolving cornucopia of designer products—boy bands, rap stars, action films, gadgets to play the songs, feature-rich smart phones, and even clothing and personal-care items—that are essentially fungible commodities whose purpose is to separate customers from their cash. Rather than a free market, this convergence can be seen as a rigorous development of data-driven merchandising that can entrap less-than-independent-minded young people in a consumer niche from which there is no escape—nor even a felt need to do so. The niche becomes a comfort zone in which a never-ending cascade of what an earlier generation called “mental pabulum” ensures that the consumer is never discomfited by intellectual challenge or even by much in the way of variety—the latest hit or must-have product is simply a pricey reiteration of the last.

While this trend may drive a thriving economy, it also provides a wall of cultural static that effectively obscures both a whole other world of non-consumer-driven arts production and also the creative potential of each individual. Where there is non-stop hip-hop there is little need for the average child to sing tunes of their own devising, and young people in the United States make up a tiny proportion of fine-arts consumers or even aficionados.

The suggestions in THE ARTS AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION category are designed to develop the child’s understanding of and appreciation for artistic expression, both as something that might do on one’s own but also as a broadening context that includes media and forms beyond the familiar.

ARTS 1. Find the website for and read a magazine about the arts. Try Downbeat, Art in America, Dance, American Theatre, Aperture—there are many, many more. Find an artist or performer whose work interests you, and then look for more of her or his work in a gallery, in performance, or on the internet.
If one is not fortunate enough to live in a community with a “vibrant arts scene,” it might be difficult to imagine the extraordinary quantity and variety of output from the global creative community. The many arts magazines currently published not only offer a taste of what is available but also serious inspiration to young people who might have imaginative yens of their own. Whether the art form be music, painting, dance, or theater, magazines can give the reader a sense of who is creating what, how the critics feel about it, and how the complex marketplace for the fine and imaginative arts works. Many magazines also carry regular “how-to” features that illuminate particular techniques, along with interviews and biographical articles offer insight into the hearts and minds of a range of artists.

In itself, a magazine probably will not inspire the next Jackson Pollock, Richard Avedon, Charles Ives, or Twyla Tharp, but it will at least serve as an introduction to the nature of the creative life and contemporary art. A hard reality in our society is that new audiences for art (and this includes non-blockbuster cinema and music that doesn’t make the Top 40) are not being well trained except by happenstance; relatively few young people are even aware that there is an arts scene, and fewer still have even the faintest idea of how to access it in search of interesting things to look at and experience. Publications make a great entrée into the world of the arts, and furthermore they are themselves often beautiful things to look upon.

ARTS 2. Spend an hour a week creating a painting or sculpture; keep improving it—or create a whole collection. Invite some friends, or maybe your art teacher, to view your work at for your own personal virtual “gallery opening.”
This is as broadly open-ended as any suggestion we will offer to the interested child, and the intent here is to encourage the young person to take an intellectual and creative risk—to try something new, and perhaps to attempt to produce something in a medium or genre that is completely unfamiliar.

The work could be a simple papier-mâché figure or object, perhaps built around a frame of bent coat-hangers. It might be a watercolor painting or even a “mixed-media” piece in crayon, marker, and paint. The medium does not matter, nor does—and this must be emphasized—technical prowess.

What does matter is the idea of continuous improvement, that taking the time to reflect on a work in progress and then re-do, re-touch, or even re-conceptualize is an important, even essential, part of the creative process. A work begun, set aside, and then returned to at a later time, with a fresher mind and spirit, will naturally evolve in ways that the creator could not have imagined when the work was begun. For the child to see and experience this—and then to explain the process to viewers when the work is “unveiled”—is an important exercise in creative self-discovery, metacognition, and self-expression.

And make the virtual “gallery opening”—or unveiling, or simply the viewing—an event to honor both the effort of the creator and the learning that has been occurring.

ARTS 3. Keep a sketchbook in which you record and illustrate your observations, thoughts, feelings, and experiences
The sketchbook has been around since at least the European Middle Ages, and much of what we know of the feelings and thought processes of our forebears comes from the combination of their words and their visual ideas their sketchbooks demonstrate.

Any blank paper—a diary, a purpose-made sketch journal, or even a pad of lined notebook paper—will do. The young person can be encouraged to jot down a few ideas each day or to make a commitment simply to drawing something—and technical proficiency is beside the point. The subject could be a piece of toast or an idea for a new spaceship; it does not matter. The point here is for the journalist to work at interpreting his or her own ideas or experiences visually, to keep a record over time not only of how once sees the world but of how one thinks about it. The individual who is comfortable representing sensation or thought, no matter how poor the product might be from an artistic standpoint, will in time become adept at making explicit connections between disparate realms of ideas and at seeing the world ever more clearly and independently.

(ALSO: Language, Literature, and History)

ARTS 4. Watch a silent feature film from start to finish without stopping it, and discuss or write down your thoughts on the experience
The idea of watching a two-hour film without spoken dialogue is shocking to many young people. Accustomed as they are to having the plot carried forward by word, young audiences of today are actually often resistant to the concept of the “silent” film—and of course the fact that virtually every minute of surviving silents is in black and white robs them of even more prospective appeal. All young people can imagine are scratchy figures jerking across a screen to the remorselessly insipid accompaniment of a tinny piano.

But yet, there are any number of powerful films made before the age of talkies that can still compel a room full of twenty-first-century adolescent viewers. Chaplin’s features, especially Modern Times, can win over an audience today every bit as effectively as they did nearly 80 years ago, and such archetypal “horror flicks” as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu still chill the spine. Other classics—Fritz Lang’s Metropolis or D. W. Griffith’s epics like Intolerance or Birth of a Nation—remain compelling and even controversial—especially Birth, which is still best viewed, if viewed at all (some would say not to, ever, because of its racist content) with some strong caveats and much historical context supplied. Other genres, including even the better of the Griffith weepers—Orphans of the Storm or Way Down East—can hold their own, as well. In 2011 there was even a successful attempt, The Artist, to create a “modern” silent; it won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

What often comes as a surprise to contemporary viewers is that the silent film actually has a very clear narrative structure, helped along by title cards, exaggerated facial expressions—the “over-acting” that can look so dated in out-of-context clips of these old films—and musical sound tracks that, if played by a master and not just dubbed in with no attempt to match the story, effectively cue the audience as to the mood and tempo of the action. If the young viewer should see one of these films at one of the many revivals or festivals that feature serious artists performing the musical accompaniment, the effect is every bit as powerful as a contemporary film. The black-and-white issue soon fades; it might even be suggested that “cultural literacy” in our society includes a familiarity with some of the classic sound films of the pre-color era as well as silents.

By all means, encourage the young viewer to figure out the narrative techniques militated by the medium and find ways for them to share observations—perhaps in a school newspaper review. And why not encourage a language arts or social studies teacher to screen a silent film as part of a class or as an out-of-class treat—to spread the gospel?

By the way, many public libraries subscribe to services like Hoopla, on which card-holders can view old films. Other websites are good sources, as well.

(ALSO: Language, Literature, and History)

ARTS 5. Go to the website of an art museum or gallery and write down some of your thoughts on what you are able to view
Like the sketchbook suggestion in #22, this suggestion is designed to help the young person make and deepen the connection between experience—in this case, close observation of specific paintings or other works of art—and words.

The art of seeing art does not have to be developed in gallery space. In a world in which images fly past the eye, learning to look for patterns and harmonies requires first of all the ability to look with a careful and unanxious eye. No one can enjoy a visiting or viewing the website of a museum or gallery if they feel the pressure to “appreciate” all they see; the stereotype of the boring, knowledge-spouting “high-brow” is among the most powerful cultural deterrents in our society. The skill, the art, is to learn to look at and reflect on those things to which the eye and mind are most drawn, whether they are masterpieces or not.

Even if the site visited is modest in scale—a small local gallery, perhaps—and the works viewed less than Old Masters, the young person is also working here at developing skill in expressing a response to such an experience—and it must be emphasized here that there should be no expectations in terms of quality or quantity other than a good-faith attempt to elicit something more than monosyllables.

By way of motivating suggestions or topics, even such hackneyed prompts as “My favorite sculpture was” or “The part I liked the least was” might be offered. The object is not to present merely an “answer” but to develop skill in the presenting evidence both from the experience and from the child’s thoughts and feelings that will effectively support the assertion. The word Why? is always more important than What? and this is especially true in matters of opinion. (And, it should be added from this educator’s perspective, in a world in which simply having an opinion—see any cable news channel—seems to be valued for its own sake, the student who has internalized the habit of presenting evidence to support a point of view is light years ahead of most of their peers.)

The audience for the written response might be the child themself—just a private journal or diary, maybe. If a relative, guardian, or friend should offer service as a reader, let this reader be gentle and positive only. A critique of what has been done rather than friendly encouragement toward even more will quickly defeat the purpose of this exercise.

ARTS 6. Make a connection with someone in your family or in your community who makes art or high-quality craft objects, and ask if you can perhaps arrange an online chat to see what they do and talk about how they do it. .
Every town or neighborhood has its artist or craftsperson. Even if the person is not “public” with his or her creative enterprise, chances are someone knows about it, and it may be that they would welcome a suitably quiet and respectful audience.

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School arts programs—or what are left of them in an age shrinking school resources—provide students with few opportunities to watch or discuss someone else’s creative processes at work. While good arts educators emphasize that creation is largely a process of problem-solving and decisions, our culture’s obsession with product (and often with genius, as if Picasso or the Beatles had somehow been exempt from the “one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration” rule, which they were not) often obscures this. For a young person to learn at close hand about the act of creation—of false starts and re-tries, of reflection, of consciously altered perspective—is to learn that craft and polish proceed from effort and deliberation.

The artist or craftsperson who is willing to share this with a young observer is performing a service that is an age-old part of the human condition as well as a sophisticated educational act. Where else can a young person learn the extent to which technique—even of the most subtle and expert sort—is above all the servant of thought and imagination?

ARTS 7. Shoot a series of digital photographs (or a roll of film!) with the goal of capturing one wildly beautiful image of something (or someone).
Any camera, from a cellphone digital to a single-use disposable camera (although the combination of initial cost and film-processing fees can run up a significant tab) can be used to take award-winning photographs. If the youngster has little experience in the visual arts, the first step might be for them to simply become accustomed to looking at the world through the viewfinder, not snapping pictures but getting used to the idea of the visual world broken into smaller units, framed.

Another first step might be to look at great photographs. Any issue of the National Geographic magazine is a miniature museum of photographic excellence, and many art galleries display photographs. The public library should have photography magazines as well as books of photographic art. Simply looking at beautiful photographs is a wonderful way to begin to understand the potential of the medium to do more than record snapshots of friends and relations.

Landscapes, candid, portraits, close-ups—all kinds of subject matter lends itself to beautiful, even moving photography. The child may want to ration the images they create (especially if a film camera is involved), or perhaps the exercise of taking a series of photographs of a single subject would be worthwhile. A photodocumentary, although not quite fulfilling the notion of a single beautiful image, could also be a great project—a series of photographs or friends at play or of a neighborhood activity, or a family portrait gallery showing relatives at work.

If the child has access to a digital camera, which of course includes any “smart” phone, the ability to capture a huge multiplicity of images can be used to help the child develop an “eye” through self-critique. Which images “work,” and which do not? What are the elements of a great photograph?

When in the end the beautiful photograph has been made, the final and perhaps most satisfying project will be to decide where and how it will be displayed, or to whom it might be given. (And do not forget that there are any number of photographic competitions in which to enter the image. Some are even for young photographers only.)

ARTS 8. Learn to play a new musical instrument. You don’t have to be great—you just have to have some fun doing it.
There are so many musical instruments from which to choose: obscure, ethnically specific, loud, soft, heavenly, harsh. Why not give one a try, even if you regard yourself as a complete musical incompetent?

It seems that there is almost nothing so central to what makes us human as our ability to make and enjoy music. The simple kazoo or any sort of drum can satisfy this inner need, but so can bagpipes, a didgeridoo, a gamelan, an Appalachian dulcimer, or a bassoon. Musical instruments can be found in many places without having to travel beyond the home or neighborhood, an lessons are everywhere these days on the internet (try YouTube!). One can choose one’s instrument for reasons of cost, portability, family heritage, cool sound, or any other reason.

Although virtuosity may lurk just beneath a heretofore unmusical skin, the development of musical skill might well be described in the words of G. K. Chesterton, who maintained that “A thing worth doing is worth doing badly.” (See Essay 1, “On Doing Things Badly and the Cult of Expertise: The Interested Child Mindset”)

In other words, if the activity brings pleasure and satisfaction, it does not matter whether the young musician will ever be ready for Carnegie Hall—the pleasure is in the doing, and half of that in the struggle to make something that sounds even half-good on a difficult instrument.

Of course, if the mastery of the instrument also involves learning to read some form of musical notation (and along with the familiar Western scale there are many others from other cultural traditions or that respond specifically to the needs of a complex instrument or musical genre) the benefit is multiplied many times. To sight read music is to be literate in a whole new language, a language that may be as beautiful and important as one’s native tongue.

The musical urge may be a passing fancy or a lifelong passion; it does not much matter. But for the time in which the child of any age from three to 93 gives themself over to learning the instrument, the lessons of concentration, mind-body coordination, perseverance, and musical understanding will lay behavioral and neural foundations of lasting value.

ARTS 9. Create a scaled-up version of some simple object—say, a six-foot lollipop. Find a place to display your giant something. Keep a blog or journal of the creation and the experience of people’s response.
In the 1960s outscale representations of everyday objects became a particularly entertaining sub-genre of the Pop Art movement; Claes Oldenburg’s giant sculpture, “Lipstick on a Caterpillar Track,” was part of the vista from my college dormitory room. More recently a student at a school where I worked constructed a giant pencil, realistically broken, that occupied the margin of our baseball field; we don’t know what our opponents thought of it, but the combination of whimsical imagination and solid craftsmanship always pleased us.

The design challenge is of course the scaling-up, a fine mathematical exercise involving accurate measurement and an understanding of proportion. Any object will do, of course, the more unexpected the better.

Masonite or other relatively workable building materials can be formed around wooden frames to produce most non-curvilinear forms, and fiberglass and other plastics are almost infinitely shape-able. The greatest challenge in the end might be to find a suitable, and secure, place to display the work. Municipal public spaces or schoolyards might do, or perhaps a local arts organization has a spot available.

Although we almost hesitate even to mention it, there is a fine and lively tradition of “guerrilla” public art, with pieces suddenly turning up in the most unexpected and amusing places—if a work is neither offensive nor dangerous, perhaps the young artist could quietly arrange for an unveiling in a place calculated to surprise—and to entertain, safely. However, there may be unforeseen consequences, so proceed with extreme caution and circumspection. It would probably be best to start by asking permission of those in charge of likely display venues.

The response is the thing. A large and unexpected object will raise a smile on most people’s faces, and the young artist should take pride and pleasure in observing how viewers react. If there is indeed an art teacher somewhere in the young artist’s life, that person will very much enjoy hearing all the details—food for further discussion about the creative process and the nature of art, as well.

(ALSO: STEM)