Wherever alumni of this high school gather, both actually and electronically, there is something that seems to hang in the air. Somehow it was expected that most of the people who attended the school would go on to have careers in the arts. In reality, most do not.
For several years I worked in the graphic design industry. I did not consider this working in the arts. It does require certain skills commonly associated with artists. It is not a career in the arts. I also used to teach a college course on 3D Game Design. Again, certain artistic skills were used without me actually having a career in the arts. In both of these fields one will go far if they learn how to do what they are told and do it by the book. These are not arts.
But now I do have a career in the arts. It was an art area not represented at the high school. I am an Industrial Artist. The department name didn't make much sense to me in secondary schools. Most people just called it 'Shop'. Home Economics, now there is a department name that made sense. But why wouldn't they just call it Shop?The average high school industrial arts class has about as much resemblance to real industrial arts as the visual arts classes did to real visual arts. They introduce you to the tools, show you how to use them, tell you how others have used them and then tell you to do it just like some other person did. That is not art in either case.
Mechanics, machinists, tool and die makers, etc. are not necessarily artists. Most are not and it is best that way. Some are. When presented with a novel scenario, the industrial artist will visualize and then perform and/or create. My current job is the most creatively stimulating thing I have ever done for an employer. On a daily basis I am forced into situations that require the work of an artist. Designers, technicians and engineers often fail where I succeed. The result isn't always beautiful. Some times it is. There is plenty of good art out there in both categories.
So why has the aforementioned high school forsaken the Industrial Arts? You could get bits and pieces in doing theater tech work or a few skills in visual classes. No actual Industrial Arts department. Instead the Industrial Arts are relegated to 'Technical Schools'. It's a damn shame. Or not. It is often better to let artists emerge rather than trying to coax it out of someone. Like me discovering that I am a talented industrial artist.
Just wanted to let everyone know that I am now one of those people who has a career in the arts. I work with my tools to conduct a symphony of machinery utilizing the mediums of steel, plastic, aluminum and various chemicals (and lots of other stuff). Those who have seen me perform think that I am an artist. They also think I'm a Satan worshiping minister, but artists tend to be eccentric.
4 comments:
I very much agree with you, but I also think there's a danger to any practice of isolating a profession to the fringes of a population.
I had lunch with a teacher from the arts education government agency in question a few years ago. At that time, it was (most innocently) suggested that I (and many others) was a disappointment to that agency, because I had chosen to "abandon" the arts. I took offense to that, first, because I didn't think that I had, and second, because what's so special about an arts career for its own sake?
I'm really good at what I do. I teach children, who don't know how, to play and interact with others. It's an exquisitely simple goal that belies an underlying problem of incredible complexity. I now have a lot of training that tries to explain why I'm good at what I do, but frankly, I did it long before I had the training. As a scientist, I could now, potentially, quantify the rhythm and timing of my speech, the angles of gesture, the precise intervals of intonation that communicate affect and use fMRI to measure the response in the brain...
Perception researchers do exactly that- I used to teach what I jokingly referred to as "applied perception" to my theater students. I liked to stir up controversy by insisting that art is not magic, it's little more than applied science. That's because the challenge is not in the execution of the spell, but deciding what you'd like it to do. Similarly, in what you do, Jake, or what I do, talent is not in the wielding of tools, but in the process of decision making.
I generally consider myself equal parts artist and scientist. I would be happy to refer to what I do as a "healing art" if that expression wasn't, for the general population, synonymous with "quackery." I suspect that if you referred to yourself as an "industrial artist" that it would similarly color the perception of your technical ability. Artists (scientists, too, for that matter) are generally quarantined on the fringes of society where they are least likely to infect others, keeping separate those who imagine, those who execute, and those who understand.
I think this is a stupid and dangerous distinction- the sequelae of which is an educational system increasingly limited to the "execution," when each category is useless without the other two.
Wow. Apparently that struck a nerve. Sorry, I'll take my soapbox with me, so no one trips on it...
I think it is fair to say that it is/was the intent of PCAE/MCAE to unleash young artists onto the world. And I saw first hand the disappointement of faculty and administration when an alum would come to visit and tell them they were not working in the arts. Unless they were a lawyer or making a shit load of money after going to a good school. Then it was okay. Perhaps they were measuring their own success as educators on the post-secondary choices of their students. To most of the people who I remember attending school there with, it was a place to get the fuck away from intensely sucky situations at other schools. Educationally speaking, I probably would have done better to choose Minnesota's post-secondary option to attend a community college for my last two years of high school. I wouldn't have had nearly as much crazy fun, though.
And PCAE really should stay the fuck away from Industrial Arts. They'd totally fuck it up.
While not scientific in the least, my memory of people who did pursue careers in the arts places a majority of them in upper middle class suburban households where they had one hell of a safety net backing them up. Which might explain why the demographic of the student population has switched to strongly favor these types of students. It may or may not be a conscious effort. But if we were all supposed to run off and be artists, doesn't that suggest we were mere robots to be programmed as far as they were concerned? Or were they hoping to ride the coattails of their famous and talented students? (I worked there way too damn long.)
And as a person who has studied the theory and practice of ritual magick, I'd say that art is magick for exactly the reason you say it isn't. Because magick has very little to do with the proper execution of the ritual and everything to do with the intent towards a specified result. What I do is very much magick and art.
But magick and art alone are useless, as you (half) pointed out. If I see a loose nut and know that it must be tightened but lack the technical knowledge of my trade that says I should use a wrench to perform that task, all the applied perception and intent will not keep that nut from backing off again when I hand tighten it. But I understand tools, thread forms, thread percentage and torque. I know how to turn that nut to snug it and hold it in place and I've gotten a lot better about over-tightening and snapping bolts. So first one must be a technician, one who can apply science. Then one can be an artist/magician, one who applies perception or intent. But I've also fixed machines with nothing more than my presence. It happens a lot, actually. That's freaky cool.
How to put this...?
My wife teaches Art History.
She doesn't, however, aspire to raise up a new generation of Art Historians. Rather, she wants to raise up a new generation of people who can look at the world through its arts, who may become patrons or the arts, or who may find their lives enriched by the arts.
Studying the arts shouldn't been seen as solely for the purpose of making artists. That's just silyl.
I won a trophy for draughting in 10th grade
Post a Comment