Artspeak

As a rule, I don't like artists too much. It's nothing personal, and I don't mean all of them (as a matter of fact, I have some very close friends who are artists. Most of the comic book artists I know are good people). The artists I'm talking about are the ones who parade themselves around as "arteests", complete with art-speak, which I loathe. You may know the type – snotty, nose-in-the-air people who think they know something you don't. I happened to be surrounded by them in college. Even though I have a Psychology major (and Psych majors are no great shakes either, mind you), I took a boatload of art classes, especially in printmaking. My days were filled with forced contact with those I would rather not contact.

I know I'm coming off as a big snob. I know, I know. But, hell, you weren't even there.

One of the people that I saw over two semesters was a guy named Hilary (yes, a guy). He was okay, and could play a decent game of air hockey (a skill I admire). We weren't friends, exactly, but we got along fine, and he was a fair artist. We parted ways when I finished my degree without noticing we parted ways, and I only encountered him again once I went back to school to get my teaching certificate. By then, he had been teaching art at a military academy, and it seemed to go straight to his head. He had been hired to teach a course in elementary art education to our group (about thirty-five people) as one-third of a full course that also included children's literature and music. None of these parts was really necessary for our licenses, which were all 1-6 grade general education, but they added some flavor.

Well, ol' Hilary was a total schmuck about his role. He ran the class like he was at the military academy, and soon drew the ire of the entire class. In addition to pop quizzes and unnecessary hoop-jumping he forced on us, he spoke in art-speak. It came out of his mouth in an unintelligible flow of diarrhea, and everyone in the class looked around to their companions to see if they knew what he was speaking about. I had the best clue, probably, since I had a few years of art classes to get acquainted with the language, but even I found in intolerable. The blank stares and lack of comments didn't stop Hilary from continuing on.
He had the class write response papers to articles, some of which made a little bit of sense. There was one in particular that pissed us off, though, and that was about "discipline-based art education." This worthless piece of drivel was completely foreign and indecipherable, and left us all scratching our collective heads in wonderment. Not knowing how to respond to an article that confounded me, I wrote this:

This article speaks, at great length, on the subject of discipline-based art education. The reaction to this article, which stirred my emotions notably, starts with this simple quote by Charles Babbage – "The difference Engine is merely Synergetics plus ingenuity." This Victorian-era wunderkind expressed the point of art education in the modern classroom more succinctly and eloquently as any artistic or art-philosophy notables that come to mind. In his expression, he diametrically opposes the thinking over the past twenty years in art education. He speaks as a rogue artist replete with the vigor of ultimate expression – he alone is the master of his domain. His artistic expressivism arises out of need – his own private need. This is not to say he didn't partake on expressions of whimsy or satire. If so, the whimsical or satirical expressions were necessary based on the need of the self.

Now, this is pure drivel, I assure you. I'm not going to scare you into thinking that this makes sense to me. I was inspired by my friend Ken, who told me he saw an artist explain his painting by telling the onlooker that the figure in his painting "arose out of need." It was a preposterous thing to say, but it is a great example of what I hate about artists. Anyway, I continued:

Many artists after him (who were, undeniably, moved by his direction) took it upon themselves to be the spokespeople for their own expressivism. Edward Gorey, Ted McKeever, Dave McKean and many others picked up the reins and spurred the carriage forward. Not only were they non-traditional artists (but who is, I bluntly ask?), but they brought with them their own self-styled Muse. Through a counter-culture style of art, they showed (and still show) the world that the artist within gets borne from oneself. A mythical Phoenix, as it were, with the exception that the first rebirth, is in fact, the first birth that originated not from an educational coupling, but from an anti-establishment reaction to the educational process. Their personal epiphanies illustrate (no pun intended) their artistic standing. The core of their artistic beings arise out of their need to be alone in a world in which they are not. A paradox that only gets amplified in an artistic world where paradoxes are not only present but are, most likely, ever-present.
I suppose that I take this view of discipline-based art education as it is. In the words of an inspiring art philosopher (whose name I cannot recall), "Why waste time playing bob-stones with alligators when one can play ten-pins with gods?"

Well, if you can believe it, I got an A on this paper. It proved to me that artists don't know what the hell they're talking about themselves. I showed this paper around to my friends in class, they all lost every last bit of respect for the guy (if they had any left to begin with), and we chuckled about it for the next six months.

As a side note, he sapped any inspiration to teach art in our classrooms by being the most tedious, overbearing, horrible teacher I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

As another side note, I really like the part about the Phoenix. I thought that was an inspired bit.

Whew! I feel better already. Thank you for listening.

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