To think that Art is a very important subject?

[malificent7]

I adore Art however i wasn't brave enough to pursue a career in it due to stories of financial insecurity etc..however i do it as a hobby.
I think that it is massively undervalued as most things have been designed and it's a good outlet for creativity. Aibu to think that it's important as it requires skills such as maths, dexterity and problem solving aswell as creativity?

I completely agree and YANBU

It tends to get devalued in the UK because of a number of things -

• People are terrified of their DCs doing something that is economically uncertain and seems "unproductive to society", so steer them in other directions

• There's still a class thing going on - there aren't University grants any more, so a lot of art students are privileged in some way unless they are able to get a bursary

• There's an "emperor's new clothes" element to it all, which has been fostered by the rampant commercialism of the likes of Damian Hirst, who has spun out a career making formaldehyde encased animals and spot paintings for three decades, to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. If you don't value such art, then he can come across as a charlatan.

Our creative industries are the pride of the UK in my view - whether it be film post production, set design, art galleries, the UK's art scene as a whole and the names it has spawned of recent...I agree it's undervalued and I hope that if times get tough during and after Brexit, that the arts isn't the first to suffer.

Sadly when everyone one has bills to pay and needs to put food on the table, only labour that is sufficiently financially rewarded is valued.

We need beauty in our lives too.

YANBU

BUT - i do think it suffers in the same way PE/sport does at school - it becomes about who's 'good' at it rather than giving the student the means to make their own relationship with the subject

YANBU.

Hmmm I see your point but, I hated art and design in school as it was so strctured and I felt there was little fun in what we did.

I love certain aspects of art now, like brush lettering, calligraphy and watercolours but we never did those in school. I guess it's because art has so many different topics. In school we did basic drawing like portraits, graphics and clay work (among others I forget) and I wasnt good at those and so hated art. I think it's too vast a subject to be covered properly in school, there should be more choices of what children do in art in school. Tbh I'm leaning towards yabu, not that important

Yes definitely. My dd has sn affecting her communication. She absolutely loves art and is constantly drawing, painting, making things. It's been an amazing way for her to express herself.

Hated art at school. Waste of time.

It's a problem with music as well (at my kids schools, the problem with poor music education is worse than it is for art). Personally, I blame the EBacc target. Pupils are pushed into doing humanities/sciences/languages, so the school hits the target, rather than focussing on a well rounded education for all pupils that takes account of their individual strengths/weakness. In years 7/8, DC1s best subject was art. His favourite subject was music. He could only choose to take 1 of them at GCSE (and school had him take 12, so it's not as if he wasn't doing enough of the other subjects). No schools in our town alllowed pupils to take both art and music. I checked. All the artistic subjects seem to be becoming sidelined more and more, and it's been happening for several years now.

Trills - I think the policy of only art or music is because they are such time-heavy subjects. Friends' DC who did art spent as long on prepping their portfolios as they did revising for all other subjects combined. DS1 did music and it was similarly time consuming as he did a syllabus with a lot of composition in it.

OP I agree it is a crucial subject. In fact a friend and I were gazing up at some gorgeous carvings on baroque buildings in London the other day, wondering is anyone would ever again have the joy and creative spirit to incorporate ornate decoratation into the design of public buildings. Even architects seem timid to do anything other than bend a line a bit. That's about as decorative as you get these days. (Grayson Perry's Essex House excepted. But he's an artist anyway.)

I agree that art is undervalued, but also may not always be taught well.
When I was at school (a very long time ago), the art at secondary school in year 7 and year 8 (ages 11-13), the art was just painting, and the teacher decided the theme (a hockey match; a butchers shop). It was so totally boring, I completely lost interest.

In the third year (year 9), a new art teacher was appointed and he had some crazy ideas and different techniques, and introduced us to pottery.

When my DC were young, I tried to find an after school art club, but the sort of thing I hoped to find did not exist. I was thinking of different mediums such as Pottery, chalks, calligraphy, charcoals etc. Then there are so many different topics one could try - a poster for wildlife, etc.

I always thought abstract art was a waste of space, until at work one day, the office had some arty pictures dotted around, and I found myself mesmerised by some abstract paintings, and realised just how clever it was with the composition, design, colous, etc

In other words, art has always been a source of disappointment to me and especially school art.
I am guessing that there will be some art teacher here, who will tell me they are contrained by the curriculum as to what to teach, but the subject is so vaste there could be loads of stuff

I agree a well rounded education is extremely important

It definitely is, and I'm a science nut. Creativity and imagination are useful enough without considering the technical skills (dexterity, chemical knowledge, colour and material knowledge) as well as critical thinking, appreciation and historical contexts. Art has been around a lot longer than most of the things we consider 'useful' and is intrinsically linked with our history and what it means to be human.

You were good at art and it drives your belief re how important it is

I was and am utterly shite at art. Derived no pleasure from it at all!

If someone is doing 12 GCSEs there's plenty of room to do art and music. I can see that if you're doing 8 it's rather different. I don't think music is time consuming in the same way art is.

Neither of my children did art GCSE, but one chose music, drama and DT (plus the EBacc, which was compulsory).

For me it was a very important subject - if I hadn't had two inspirational art teachers who recognised my talent and helped me apply to University to study for a design degree I wouldn't be working in the design industry and earning the living I am and enjoying the work that I do. Art is important - at the moment I am trying to support and encourage my DDs friend who at 14 is an amazingly talented artist despite her age and needs to take her skills further, I see me in her and would hate for her to feel that those skills aren't valued and for her to be channelled into a more 'academic' route that doesn't suit her or give her the joy that her artwork clearly does. For those that don't have that creative edge art is often misunderstood and art at school is often neglected but for those of us who just 'get it' it's as important as any other school subject. Creative industry in the UK is amongst the best in the world yet our government/schools are neglecting it in favour of more academic subjects and the arts in the future will suffer because of it.

Art is important because education is about being a well-rounded human being. Obviously skills and knowledge which apply directly to the workplace are important, but unless there's more to life, a robot could do much the same.

I think children need to be getting a well rounded education and this isn't happening at present. People need to have received a cultural education as well as a 'practical' one. My children know very little about art or music and since I wasn't taught much about them either, I can't pick up the slack there.
Also, it's about fostering the natural talent that some children have - not everyone is good at Maths or Science or English but the school system makes people feel like failures for not having a natural ability in these areas and doesn't always support their talents in other areas.

Personally I wish it were permanently banished from the school curriculum, fine as a hobby but I was bullied and berated by teachers because of my lack of artistic ability. Far better to teach computer skills for longer or something useful like cooking. Definitely optional at secondary imho

I think it's too vast a subject to be covered properly in school

Yes. I agree across all the creative disciplines, and it's a real shame, because creative skills and understanding are vastly important to many other areas of skill acquisition.

Then there's the enjoyment aspect. Kids uninterested in painting will 99.9% of the time remain disinterested their entire lives, and never need to paint anything. But they might have been interested in a huge range of other creative skills, or be very interested in understanding art. Instead they get turned off the subject at an early stage.

Mind you, I think there's a similar problem with sport. Hugely important to living a healthy life - but the individual disciplines are not necessary at all.

I feel like a huge shake-up is important to both subjects - give all kids a fair chance at learning the necessary core skills, rather than switching off 90%.

I think it's too vast a subject to be covered properly in school

Yikes, ok. But so is history, mathematics, modern literature is vast...it's just that people have created syllabuses to provide a framework for examination and assessment for those subjects, hence we all study algebra, we all read the Merchant of Venice etc..

Why can't the same be true for art? If you understand the basics of technique, perspective etc, and you understand the major historical shifts in Western art, major movements in world art etc, surely that's enough to be going on for a proper academic study of the subject?

Everything is vast if examined up closely so to speak, but I wouldn't want to use that reason as an excuse for phasing out art as a study.

If you take 'usefulness' to the extreme you could abolish 99 per cent of the curriculum, assign each human a career at birth and just train them for that...

It’s important to many people. Massively? Maybe to some. To most, probably less so than other subjects.

At DS' primary school they go every year to the modern art museum and look at a temporary exhibition, then do some art based on it. When he was 5yo he was introduced to Miro and has pointed at anything slightly abstract (graffiti, broken box, a rug whatever) as 'That's Miro' . They then did a small tapestry Miro on mini looms, we still have it. They've also done a sculpture of a man walking, out of tinfoil (he was asked 'but where are his arms?' and answered 'close to his body because his hands are in his pockets'). DS is only 8 and still obviously doing primary-age stuff, but it gets him thinking about different things, it's given him confidence in his own drawings - which are frankly appalling, but he sees perfect stick people where i see wobbly lines, he has no talent whatsoever but takes great enjoyment out of it - that's art to me (for his age).

I did art to A level, and we have lots of art boks in the house and some original paintings (one by my dad, one by me, two by a friend, another from a street artist etc), quite different styles, so he sees art daily. In fact after his initial Miro obsession i painted (copied) one and it's his favourite thing in his room.

I thnk art until 14 is great if you have a fun teacher who encourages everyone and who uses (or the curriculum allows for...) different medium. At secondary we did watercolour, oils, acrylics, pencil, lino, pottery, weaving, screen printing, junk modelling etc. (back in the 90s) if you weren't very good at one, you might be not too bad at another.

Pin art, macrame, pasta pictures, papier mache, spirographs... all that type of stuff i did at home with my mum and i do at home with DS. Dad taught me woodcrafts and how to fix a bike, wallpaper a room etc.

YANBU. 'The arts' are a vital part of any thriving culture, be that 'high art' or the more practical design etc etc.

The arts are important, but they are a luxury.

It's a sign of how wealthy a society we are that we can afford to have people just pursuing art.

But yes, in our modern wealthy society art/design/etc had a great deal of value.