Teaching Art as Opposed to Teaching Painting

Teaching someone to paint, as I see it is so much easier than teaching someone to make Art.  After all, the conversation of, What is Art, can be joined with the concepts of What is Love, and Who is God.  Do I have your attention yet?

These three questions all have been debated and discussed forever.  Sure, there are those of us “Who have the answers”.  Sure, we can be so sure that we KNOW.  However, on the contrary, I ask; How many religions are there in the world?  Yes, they all have their answer as to who God is.  Love, OMG, where do we start?  Then again, we all indulge on this lifelong journey as to what LOVE is.

What is Art, as I see it, is so much easier to define.  Right?  Just go to any Art School and ask.  They will tell you.  How about a Gallery, an Arts organization, scholars, and historians, go ask them.  Why not just ask Artists.  Realism, Abstract, Conceptual, Installation, Sound, Words, all are different kinds of Art Forms.  Do you remember when Digital Art came around 15 years ago?  Arts Schools, Museums, and Arts organizations did not know what to do with it, or how to define it.  Is it Art?  Did the human hand have to be part of the process?

OH dear, we now have AI.  Artificial Intelligence.  What’s an Artist to do?  What do teachers teach?  What is accepted as “ART” or “NOT?”

I began this conversation with a simple hypothesis:  Teaching Painting is so much easier than teaching ART.

I can teach anyone to draw and paint to a very proficient level.  Give me 20hrs a week and in a year, you will be astounded at your progress.  You will be inspired to put brush to canvas, make marks, be challenged by this process and continue to grow.  At some point, all painters ask the proverbial questions:  “What am I doing?”   “Why am I doing this?”   “What is significant about my paintings?”   “What makes my work, my Art, my person, DIFFERENT?”  Now the self-questioning begins.  ART, the study of one’s soul, the expression that is so personal, begins.

Fear follows us throughout life.  All humans FEAR.  It drives us.  We as Artists live in fear and self-doubt.  This drives us or suffocates us.  Or both.  We pick up brushes and pursue this event of making a painting.  The process feels so good.  The outcome is usually disappointing.  Then we brood for a while.  I suck, we think.  Or we fight back, “ F-it, I am going to figure this out” creeps in.  Or both.

So, we drive ourselves to another canvas.  Maybe a different medium.  We wake up thinking about resolution, we think about larger canvases, different subjects, brighter colors, more real, less real, will it sell, I don’t care if it sells, and will this get me into a gallery.  Oh, someone slow my mind down, we ask.

Maybe we will sleep well.  Maybe we wake with anticipation of a dance with God on our canvas, or we angst that we have not found the solution to our problem.  Ahhhh, making Art.  Go ahead, I dare you.

Challenge your soul, your mind, and your abilities.  Go Ahead.  After all, we are on a quest to make great paintings, great art, Art that will be respected by others, Paintings that will sooth our soul…. go ahead.  But know that this is a roller coaster of a ride. Beware of the Questions that have no answers. The Questions that have no answers will continue to drive us. 

Ta  Ta…..for now