Well, I think you were actually fortunate~ a lot of the "indoctrination" surrounding what's "appropriate" art happens in preschool/early school age years. Coloring in the lines, good, scribble, bad. The kid whose picture looks the most "like" what everyone is drawing is the one whose work is ood and ahhd over. Teachers send subliminal and not-so-subliminal messages that if you are artistic/creative, you really aren't that acceptable in society. Their job is to make you conform.

So, do you think that this indoctrination robs one of the love of making things? The same can't be said to be true of sports or most academic subjects.

Personally, the only "artistic" childhood thing I recall is coloring, which I loved. I took pride in keeping it really neat, never weird colors, and always outlined. Have no idea when I stopped that, and never saw it as creative, as I wasn't drawing the picture, I was only coloring it. I am fortunate to have walked into a wonderful rubber stamping store about 8 years ago, the first step in a process which opened up the possibility of my creating something artistic, and being around others whose art oozed out their beings and were so ready to share. Coincidentaly, I am at a time of life when I can pursue personal interests, and pursue I do. I dabble in many things. I could improve by leaps and bounds in any area if I were more focused, but there's so much out there, I want to try it all...I (apparently) get bored easily and love new challenges. People say I am chasing after my long-ago childhood, or at least those things that would have been more appropriate then. I don't care. I'm having fun now! I read a great thought the other day..."I am not afraid of dying...I am afraid of running out of time." That's me.

Hi Danny
Great post.

art doesn't have to have a capital A.
amen.

But Danny, do stop worry so much man, from all you write that kid of yours is just fine :)
Tell us when we can buy the book, creative license, ok.
Thanks.
-Patty

It seems to me to boil down, way down, to Values and Grit. It takes both in good stead to succeed in the truest sense. I have non-materialistic values that suit me, but a only a "whim of iron" (as a friend coined). Therefore, I am an artist but without actual acheivement in the world.

This is a wonderful essay, Danny, that brings up so many good points. My 13 year old is very artistic and her art work has been shown at all the school events and local shows. However, this year she stopped taking art because she is also in honors classes, and there was no room for the elctive.

I probably was the only mother at the school begging my daughter NOT to take Honors Bio so she could fit art in instead of the lab. She didn't want to do it. I think it may be part of establishing her identity separate from me, but it still makes me sad to see her not touch her pastels, paints, and stop designing her own skateboards and spray painting her helmets. It seems as though she's hit puberty and decided it was all childish stuff.

I know you live in the city, and I'm sure your little guy would flourish at one of the art high schools. Our large public high school has a fantastic art department, but it's difficult for the college bound kids to keep the art elective unless they intend to major in art in college.

I don't know how I would survive without art and writing to think about every day. If my life was just about being a lawyer and coming home to TV and chores and shopping, I would shrivel up and blow away.

I wasn't given any direction growing up. My parents were working too hard at their jobs. I had no mentors...no one to take me under their wing. Tha art was driven out of me by art class and other classes. Not one teacher that I had ever pushed their students to think outside the box. We were all trapped in it. If we tried to get out, we were pulled back in through coercion or ridicule. I know of only one college professor who was very creative and pushed us. (She was the best teacher I ever had). One teacher out of how many in my life? She was the only one who wanted us to think for ourselves. (It wasnt an art teacher). No wonder we aren't creating art for a living. All of my creativty was squelched by the school system by the time I reached the 9th grade. Kind of sad.

I love this post, but most of all I love your froggie drawing! There's something about it that strikes me as being really, really beautiful, and I don't know why. It's line's are simple and eccentric - but exactly where they need to be.

This is a very interesting issue you bring up. Personally, I had to claw and scratch and fight for every creative endeavor as a child. Hostile environment. But with my own children, I have tried hard to stay tuned to their many creative twists and turns. My daughter started with piano, switched to clarinet, then violin (even when a respected family friend told her she was too old....bahhhh) and now she is back to piano. I have to trust HER process. I feel like my job is to offer support and choices. This has yielded a very rich experience in our house. It's scarry sometimes...I wonder about where she will end up. She is also very casual about a HUGE visual arts talent. In essence I have to make sure I stay out of her way while she is growing creatively. She also stopped drawing at the age of 11 but now that she's in high school, she is back in the drawing groove in a huge way. But I'm having such a great time participating as a parent in the development of a healthy child's creative development. So different from my experience. Our online community, my new drawing friends and my family offer me so much support. I'm finding drawing is like a drug. I'm addicted to the wonderful feelings that bloom inside of me. But no unpleasant side effects.
As for Jack, he has a great role model in both you and Patty. Trust your creative parenting and his creative process. You can't go wrong.

As a former middle school art teacher I always felt it was my job to MINIMIZE art as a separate subject and instead show how **everything** can be done 'artistically'. In other words, take the scary part out and encourage those kids who have always liked to draw but are becoming self concious about their work- showing them how they can be artists forever in spite or in addition to whatever else they choose to do. For me it's as much a part of my identity as being brown eyed, and I would wager that it's that way for your son too. If he leans away from his art for awhile, don't worry- he'll be back!

I also stopped drawing within the first year or so of university and your tale is a familiar one. In my case, personal insecurities about my art probably had something to do with it as well, but more importantly I was a science major and at the time drawing was a useless skill which was distracting and certainly wouldn't help me find a job.

So, art was laid aside so I could concentrate on my studies, as well as dispell all notions that I was nothing but a dreamer who refuses to grow up. After all, that's what people who draw when they're not even in art school are! (...so society teaches us.) What I failed to realize then is that I experience life fullest through the act of drawing, and so by abandoning drawing altogether I was in essence failing to truly live. Consequently, my last *insert number here* years have been nothing but a blur of merely existing.

Unfortunately when I was growing up the idea of creativity as an integral part of one's life instead of one's means of living was a totally foreign concept. For example, I was the only student in my visual arts class the last year of high school who wasn't proceeding to art school the next year, and the teachers didn't know what to do with me since I didn't need to prepare a portfolio.

And things don't seem to have improved. The first thing my high school friends asked upon learning that I was "drawing again" was what I intended to do with my skills, by which they meant whether I was hoping to make a career of it or not. How sad that one of these said friends is currently a teacher.

The youth of today (i.e., your son) need others to serve as examples and encourage them to live with, not necesssarily by, creativity. Fortunately we have the Internet and we have people like you, Danny, to facilitate this :)

It's good to know I'm not the only one trying to get a grip back on their creativity after all these years.

There are some similarities and some differences in my lifelong love affair with art. Like you, I had a 20 year hiatus in which I didn't do as much as I could have, but that didn't happen until we started our family. So I never went through a 'putting away childish things' phase.

All through my youth and early married years, I kept art as a part of my life. I drew, painted, played instruments, wrote songs and poetry and balanced it out against our work in creative industries. But then, suddenly, came preschool, basketball practice, new clients, pitch meetings, more responsibility, sick elders, swing loans, death and taxes and other weighty things that are part of "the sandwich generation." I found new things to do with my day's precious extra hours. I called it "sleep."

Creative play and responsibility were in a steel cage death match, and Dr. Ph. Martin's transparent watercolors lost. There simply wasn't enough of me to go around. And like you, it took two decades before the dust settled and there was a moment (Spring 2003) to regroup. When I did, there was art, waiting quietly with a smile that said "welcome home." I hadn't lost my desire for art, I simply chose not to make time for it.

I am confident that Jack Tea won't lose touch with art the way you or I did because of the way you and Patty are raising him ... consciously ... attentively ... and with sensitivity to creating a marvelous, creative whole person. He will learn from the choices you made and the examples you two set. We have two young adults in our family that we brought up in the creative environment of our production company. (We still love to embarrass our daughter with baby photos of her teething on a film core.) We encouraged their creativity every step of the way, and always will. Today, our young businesswoman still shoots photos daily, as does our econ-major Bruin son. I hope they will keep stoking their creative fires when marriage and parenthood call them, as they surely will. And when they come to check on us in our doddering dotage, I hope we'll still have the presence of mind to say: "Never mind checking our pill box. Show us what you've shot."

That's a really interesting post! I abandoned art after high school too, unquestioningly and unflinchingly. Because art didn't have any real solid criteria for judging if I was 'good' or 'bad', I just assumed I veered to the 'bad' end of the spectrum. I majored in English, mainly because writing analytical papers came easy to me. I didn't have to try to get a good grade.

Yet as my graduation approached, I realized that I WANTED to try at something, even if I ultimately failed. I wanted to be bad at something, and work to make myself better. I didn't want to just take the easiest route offered to me. I re-enrolled as an Art student, over the protests of more practical minded advisors who worried that my Grade Point Average would suffer, as I'd managed almost perfect straight A's in English.

I still don't know if I'm any good at Art.

I think that's what I love, and what spurs me on to become better and better.

and what about how screwed up insecure and a kid can get about making art/making stuff just because everyone is paying so much/too much attention saying "how talented and gifted they are"...how messed up is that????..self image in those middle school years is beyond figuring out....but maybe your Miles Davis quote at the top of your page covers that one too...I give up!

Love the sketche but particularly your words and the way you told us about you. Maybe you see the world today with the eyes of your rememberances.

Such a thought-provoking post. I was always drawn to the creative, but I have NO memories of my parents doing anything creative...ever. I went to a Catholic elementary school where we were forced to sit through "singing" class five days a week for 8 years...but never had an art class. In high school I desperately wanted to study drama and dance and creative writing...but I felt such peer pressure, not just from my friends (none of whom studied those things) but also from my (by then single) father, who was a P.E. teacher and coach...he laughed at kids who had those sorts of interests. Instead I got steered into taking business classes for my electives...hated them...and have spent 30 years hating most of the jobs I've had as a result. My senior year of high school I took a Color & Design class...I had to muster up enormous courage to do it, since I can barely draw a stick person. But that class gave me something...a tiny glint of hope...and possibility.

I was thinking of this topic the other day -- in sort of a backwards way, I suppose. I started thinking about the EDM group, the fact that there are so many people who are reuniting with their inner artists, the sketchcrawlers, the bloggers. Then I was thinking about other side interests people have that complement their lifestyles and I began thinking about health and fitness -- more natural health issues and yoga, pilates, just plain moving more and practicing self-care. It wasn't that long ago, not much more than a hundred years or so, that physical fitness wasn't taken seriously in our culture and, for women in particular, was frowned upon. In the context of history, a hundred years is a short period of time and a tremendous change has taken place over that short period. So back to the sketchcrawls, etc., whenever I read about those I think of the wandering minstrels from the renaissance era. And here is my big thought that came out of it, what if a few hundred years from now this time is looked back upon as the beginning of an enlightenment of sorts? It all seems to fit the pattern to me, but I am running on caffeine fumes lately, weak green tea caffeine fumes at that.

Back to the question about kids and art and keeping it part of theirr lives. I don't know. I try to do art/writing workshops with younger kids to get them so enthused about the idea of keeping an illustrated journal that they'll keep it up into their teen years, when self-expression seems vital to survival. As for what would keep that spark going through adulthood, I think society needs to change and that happens one person at a time. You seem to have converted many here. I had a 20-plus-year lapse myself because of societal influences and reconnected to my artistic side after reading Everyday Matters. I think showing by example that art can be part of daily living is a good thing. Recently I bemoaned my youngest child growing older. "What am I going to do when you turn four?" I said. It was a rhetorical question, but she said, "Well, first you'll probably draw a picture of my birthday cake."

Interesting blog note...I have taught junior high and high school art as well as extensive adult education art classes..both group and private. I would often start my adult classes with a spiel saying that I would bet my bottom dollar every single one of them loved to paint and draw as kids, in fact, they probably created fearlessly up until the age of about 14 or fifteen..then some idiot adult told them some variety of negative story about not being good enough, starving artists, art is a divine gift and you are NOT divine..something along those lines..and at that point they put away their brushes and sketch pads and sadly trudged away from their own creativity. Every single adult student I ever had agreed with some form of this story..so I would then move onto my story about the caves at Lascaux. Everyone knows about the beautiful drawings there. What they don't often think about is that Humans were a "stressed species" at that point. They were hunted as well as hunters. there was no motel six to check into and most sociologists agree we were most interested in eating, finding a safe place to sleep and sometimes reproducing. But they cut the list short because some built in primal instinct, as deeply ingrained as eating, sleeping and making whoppee drove these early humans to crawl back into the depths of this cave with some very dubious light sources and some stone dishes of pigment..created ahead of time with strong intent..and created drawings in a a safe place. When you really think about this drive to create images being as strong as the basic survival drives,the miracle that becomes evident is that creating images is BIOLOGICAL. It is part of our DNA. What stifling that urge does to us psychologically and physically is unknown, but it's got to be the same as not sleeping or reproducing. Maybe this is why there is so much prozac going around !
Anyway, I supported the creativity of my son, my students and any other kids that wandered into my circle simply by providing a safe place to create with plenty of stuff to play with. I did my own painting and creating no stop in front of the kids, so they could see it was an adult, OK thing. I also had regular group get togethers with other artists..everything from egg decorating parties to painted shoe contests so that the kids could see it wasn't just me that was a creative (and possibly an anomoly) but that there were lots of folks out there building their own furniture, painting, drawing, whatever.
This has turned into a long piece, but I hope it is helpful.

Kathleen

Just another Gregory Blogger touching base.

Drop by my Gregory Family Blog anytime..All the best with the book. Nice artwork by the way.

Even more influential and destructive to the adolescents continuing artistic development is their peers' often harsh and mocking criticism. The developmental stage that young adolescents are going through makes them much more susceptible to their friends opinions than that of teachers or parents.
I have taught art in high school for the past 11 years, and much of my time is spent trying to counteract the jeering comments that many kids make almost constantly. I teach that my room is a safe zone, and am harsh on those students who disrespect that, but it happens anyway.

When it comes to learning to draw, if we want people to continue doing it beyond their elementary years, then it needs to be treated like any other academic subject. Young adolescents are also going through a phase where they believe that only realistic drawings have any artistic value. They get frustrated easily when their drawing doesn't look like the object they're trying to draw, and fall back on the myth that one has to be an artist to be able to draw. While creativity is not something that can be taught specifically, drawing definitely is. Most of my students have never been taught to draw before, even in the last art class they had back in elementary school. I tell my students that they're not learning how to draw, they're learning how to see things as they really are. Learning how to draw the basic forms, contour drawings, practicing shading, and one point perspective are all examples of specific drawing skills that can be taught, and once learned, elevate the confidence level of students dramatically.
Creativity is learning to combine your imagination with your talents. Some people have more of a head start at this, because they've had childhoods that involved imaginative activities rather than sedentary ones, like watching TV.

The combination of these two barriers means most people give up on drawing/being creative at this age, and are very nervous about picking it up again because they associate it with 'being made to look stupid' - most people's greatest fear.

your words about art always resonate with me. i drew quite a bit when i was young, mostly mechanical things like engines and airplanes, and then stopped suddenly. perhaps it was because of the reactions that some people gave me- that doodling was a frivolous activity. i rediscovered drawing about 5 years ago and what a therapeutic godsend it's been. i've also been rediscovering my childhood too
(perhaps it's a midlife crisis).for my 42nd birthday i bought myself a skateboard! how's that for childish? i rode them for years as a kid and what a smile they still bring to me (my first serious crash may change that). i've also been trying to master wheelies on my mountain bike. some of my friends are even starting to worry about me. maybe it's my imagination but it seems like new englanders are stodgy this way- we don't play enough...we hit a certain age and it's work work work, save save save, and we'll postpone our fun until retirement. "childish" activities like drawing and other things are vital for our mental health. 'too bad that collectively we've lost sight of this...maybe i'll have to move to california where i can doodle in public, ride my board and say "dude" and "righteous" a lot...take it easy

Thank you for posting this Danny, I've been musing along similar lines - only in my case it was my mother who'd stopped making art!

I love the frog!