Leigh Isaac and Melody Mclain
A for Art!
As Duncombe and Lambert said, “Art allows us to say things that can’t be said, to give form to abstract feelings and ideas.” [Duncombe & Lambert pg 25] Art is freedom of expression. It’s not something that can be controlled or maintained. Art school, in particular, loses this form of privilege. In this intervention, we decided to focus on the conversation of academic art.
There is an overwhelming pressure that academic art instructors put on their students to create specific pieces of work that conform to a formulaic approach to art rather than a free one. Art school operates on the “experiences, interests, perspective, and comforts…” that the ‘system’ views as important, like limited art styles and techniques that are considered to be proper and large projects met with small deadlines. [Duncombe & Lambert pg 68] Professors valuing art by a grade system discourages many art students from exploring outside their world because they either don’t have the time, energy, or passion. Rather than encouraging students to be free-thinking individuals, the system fails them for not conforming or “not doing enough.” Due to this constant negativity and harshness from these educators who were supposed to teach their students to pursue their passion, many lose their love for their craft and eventually quit art school and/or art entirely. Many get discouraged because their art isn’t for them, it’s for a grade.
To spread awareness for this ongoing issue, we created an interactive intervention. In the lobby of NJCU’s art building near the entrance, we placed 42 blank sticky notes with a sign that tells passing students to pick up a marker, draw anything on any note, and take it from the wall. We wanted to remind students that it’s okay to take a break and make something for themselves. It could be a simple doodle or an image that they spend a lot of time working on. We wrote messages on the back of each sticky note ranging from various messages. All were encouraging and meaningful, ranging from “You define what you want to create and why” to “Making art for yourself is valid.” We hope that each message, along with the artist’s drawing, will help to remind the students why they went to art school in the first place. The act of sketching openly invites artists to relieve stress in an overwhelmingly serious environment. The only rule we give them is to take, nothing else.
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| Instructions! |
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| Before/ Monday 2:00 pm |
That intention definitely came through after we left the intervention up from Monday-Tuesday. Despite a few of them not taking their sticky notes, the art that was left on the wall was entirely prompted and created by art students for art students.
When we first left it up on Monday, we were skeptical about how many kids were going to participate. When we returned to the piece on Tuesday, there had been many participants, leaving us with a half empty wall.
We hope the message has gotten through to those who saw the intervention. The art someone makes is theirs, and the passion they put into it is more important than conforming to a specific standard.
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