Really the first thing I have to do to teach art, is define what is Art. At least for myself.
It's so a first year art college question. But I have to go back there or else I don't know what it is that I am teaching or instructing. Art is different things to different people.
It would be easier if where I worked they just called it drawing lessons, or painting lessons, or cartooning lessons, sketching lessons or even colouring class. But nope it's ART lessons and I do all the above and more.
Art academics often have an answer that is at odds with the average persons definition. You can see it every time a person stands in front of a painting at an art gallery and asks "How is this art?" Every time I hear that I want to start banging my head against a wall. I tell my students all the time, you don`t have to like it, you can criticize it, dissect it, tear it apart, but don`t say it isn`t art.
Personally the way I see it is you don't get people who haven't studied medicine getting to declare what is and isn't valid medicine in the same way. Only other doctors get to do that.
But on the other hand art is part of culture. Different groups, different culture, different needs and uses for art. Art academia is just another group.
Where the academics have the edge is the question, and the time considering it, not necessarily their answer to it.
I think otherwise most people take the question of what is and what is not art for granted with their own personal and cultural bias. We are surrounded in a world that is so visual and full of man made images. It can`t all be ``art`` can it?
Art is personal as culture is personal. It's why some people seem to get so mad when their own view is challenged.
Academics it seems to me, are happy to exclude whole groups of people from the "official" dialog. While everyone else doesn't care what they think anyway. Though some do admit, ``I don`t know anything about art.`` and that seems impossible to me. Art is I believe universal.
Personally I see understanding of art as being one of the last great class indicators and divider left and if that is not a good argument for the importance of some kind art education then I don't know what is.
I believe a complete study of art covers or at least touches on every subject that I can think of. History, chemistry, physics, biology, math, philosophy, sociology, psychology and technology. I could go on and on. Never mind the problem solving, expression, creativity and critical thinking.
So when I'm teaching I have to ask what on earth am I even teaching? What on earth am I teaching today? Somedays I swear I`m teaching introduction to comparative anatomy rather then art.
Students and parents are coming in with their own ideas of what it's all about. The angle a teacher takes in the end can be either be personal, or more cynical, using social economic class and culture expectations as a base line and marketing to that.
Speaking for myself I have had myself balancing between the two as well as a third issue. As I teach art outside the public school system I have to try ensure my students success with the expectations of the school curriculum, by giving them an added edge. Also I try to fill in as many gaps left by that system that I perceive.
So between a students expectations, parents, peers, other teachers, admission committees, my boss and myself somebody likely not to be happy.
To answer the question what is art? Well I admit I would love to go around saying that the water colour paintings of flowers that you see so often in nursing homes and hospitals is not art. All the yellowing landscapes of the new world, or some landowners farm in the sticks is not art. I hate that stuff. I stand in front of it going this is not art, to myself while other people stand in front of it saying wow that's such beautiful art.
I have had to face it that it's what so many of what my students like, flowers in water colour. I'll tell them my point of view, but I have to also opened my mind.
Excluding my personal definition, as someone who teaches it, Art is: an expression of an idea or the human experience(s) and or condition intended to engage an audience.
