art and me

Art and Me: A brief autobiographical narrative 2

The Man’s Head and the Good Teachers

The man’s head was a big circle and on either side of the circle were arms which

poked out from where his ears were supposed to be. When I showed it to my mother

and sister, they laughed, so I gave it to my father to critique. He sat down with me and

gave me my first real drawing lesson explaining that the arms don’t grow out from the

side of the head and a head actually sits on a neck and

shoulders, and it’s there where the arms should appear. My

father drew a profile of an American Indian and a simple

portrait of a man. I was transformed, or corrupted,

depending whether you agree with Swiss educator

Rodolphe Tophler when he

espoused the idea in the 1840s

that childhood should be “an innocent and innately creative

state of being, free from the conventions of culture”

(Ivashkevich, 2006, p. 45).

My second grade teacher was the first to really

recognize my interest in art and often asked me to come in early to work on projects. In

my subsequent grade school art classes I did quite well and I would be lying if I said the

attention didn’t mean anything (Wilson, 2005). I was often asked to help draw holiday

murals and in later grades I was sometimes asked to draw the entire mural. My parents

also sent me to some private classes where I was taught to use oil paint by mostly

affable Bohemian woman artists.

War and the Catholic Church

As intimidating as it sometimes was, the Catholic Church inspired some

goodness in me and I also found the iconography captivating. I loved the statues and

the artwork that lined the walls of the church my family sometimes attended. It was

around the 3rd grade that my interest in social justice began and seemed so in sync with

what the church had been telling me in regard to peace, love, and helping each other

out (Delacruz, 1995). You see, my father was a WW II veteran who saw a lot of hellish


things in the war. Actually, my paternal grandfather went through WW I and was also

subjected to a lot of terrible violence. It’s probably an understatement, but as is the case

with every family whose members have had to be involved in war, the combination of

what happened to them both has had its adverse effects on our family over the last few

generations. Nonetheless, my father and grandfather’s experiences and stories had me

enamored with war in the way boys have always been. But the fascination from a

romantic perspective changed not much long after I found out there was no Santa

Claus. One day I went on a trip to Boston with my father and his friend, Carl. They

talked to me about war for the first time in a way I’d never experienced. Carl told me that

our government, while it was correct in stopping Hitler, didn’t always have us go to war

for good reasons. He and my father began telling me about Vietnam and how young

men were dying there and innocent people were being killed. The most hard to believe

thing was when they told me our country was not the “good guy” in this war. It was a

long way to Boston from Western Massachusetts so there was plenty of time to explain

to this little 3rd grader about the travesties and injustices taking place in the name of

democracy. That conservation was a turning point, and a life of questioning motives,

especially of powerful entities, ensued.

Florida and the Wrong People

When I was in fourth grade my family moved to Daytona Beach, Florida and I

was accused of having odd political leanings as early as the 6th grade for inquiring about

the validity of the Vietnam War. Because of my classroom banter I was actually told that

I was the type that would “hi-jack a plane to Cuba just to see what it was like there” by

my 7th grade civics teacher. Nonetheless, I did fairly well in school though I had no one

my age that shared any of these topical interests. In 7th grade I made the standard

middle school art of the time. I remember a bust I sculpted of George Washington got a

lot of attention and someone actually stole it, which I took as somewhat of a

complement. My 8th grade art class was the last art class I had until 10th grade because

in 9th grade I went to a Catholic high school that did not offer art classes. There was

also some frustration and confusion I had in regard to the nuns and priests because

they weren’t taking a pacifist stance against the war. I was seen as somewhat


subversive by the mother superior who told my mother I was likely hanging around the

“wrong” people and was too curious about the “wrong” things. I was surprised to hear

that anyone thought I was hanging out with anyone, because I was pretty much a loner.

Challenging the nuns and priests with “what would Jesus do” type questions was my

tragic flaw I suppose. Yes, much to my dismay, there were no Berrigan brother types at

this Catholic High School. The peculiar reception I was getting and the fact there were

no art classes had me lobby my parents to let me go back to public school for the

remainder of my high school years.

The Velvet Underground and the Highwaymen

The public high school had a very stern and kind of grumpy art teacher who was

really a nice lady, probably in her mid-sixties. She encouraged me to become a

“commercial” artist. Actually, at that time I didn’t really think there was any other kind of

living artist. We didn’t even have a discussion about modern or pop art that I could recall

other than a brief conversation once about Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can prints. She

wasn’t a fan and was quick to write Warhol off as some kind of hoax. Ironically, I was

listening to Lou Reed’s band The Velvet Underground at that time (and still do on

occasion) completely unaware that Reed had anything to do with Warhol. While still in

high school (1974) I even saw Warhol’s Trash and just thought it was a bad movie. I

didn’t even know it was a Warhol film until years later. Paintings from the Renaissance

through the realism and surrealism of the 20th century like Andrew Wyeth, Dali, and

even the landscape painter, Robert Wood, held my interest. Florida’s Highwaymen

artists appealed to me too. Designing faux

album covers was probably the closest thing we

did to making contemporary art. Also, to my art

teacher’s credit, we pretty much painted and

drew whatever we wanted. One of my early

“master-pieces” was actually a painting of the

musician, Leon Russell, which I copied from his

album cover. My friend’s wife just put it up on

Facebook for me to see, which is the first time I’ve gotten a glimpse of it since I was 17.


Accidents Will Happen

After high school I went to the local community college with the idea of studying

political science and eventually law. One way or another though I felt like I was

betraying my artistic talent and enrolled in art classes. The few art classes I took didn’t

really inspire me much and it wasn’t until I went to the University of South Florida that I

started understanding art and art history from a sociological perspective, which I found

quite liberating actually. Ironically, I enrolled in the graphics program at USF kind of

accidentally because I thought it was actually a commercial art curriculum I was

enrolling in. Somehow I though the term “graphics” meant “commercial art”.

Nonetheless, I heard their “graphics” program was one of the best in the southeast but I

didn’t know it was because they were renowned for their contemporary fine art Graphics

Studio (www.usfcam.usf.edu/GS/gs_artists.html). Artists like Rauschenberg, Jim Dine,

Chuck Close, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Robert Stackhouse and yes, even

Warhol, had produced work there. Almost via osmosis, the artists and instructors at

USF conveyed to me an uncomplicated understanding about modern and contemporary

art as simply an exercise in freedom of expression. There really wasn’t a lot of

discussion about aesthetics or theory. Aesthetics and theory was learned through the

art history I was studying, the art I was seeing, and the art I was expected to make, be it

strictly aesthetically motivated, political, experimental, or iconoclastic. Though the post-

modernism moniker was not used at this time to label the period (the late 70s), the

instructors made it clear that we were in an era, unlike the modernist period, that was

not being defined by one movement. This moment in history also coincided with the

beginning of punk and new wave music, something that I found equally inspiring.

Nonetheless, the late seventies was an exhilarating time for me, it seemed eons away

from the sixties and there was a less naïve and more realistic attitude that prevailed,

albeit, perhaps a bit too much on the sardonic side at times. However, I felt like I was in

the right place and exciting things were happening.

Where I am now

My current studies at UF have reinforced a long held conviction of mine that art

education should be enabling the student to express themselves freely. While I

http://www.usfcam.usf.edu/GS/gs_artists.html


appreciate my father’s early instructions as it has become part of the “story of me”, I

wonder sometimes if it had not happened whether I would be better off artistically. As

with so many things, one will never know. The early years are precious; there is a

closeness children have to nature that is too extraordinary to begin teaching them to

see the way we expect them to see, however, if the child is inclined to appropriate

imagery, I wouldn’t get in their way (Eisner, 1980; Delacruz, 1995, 2005; Toku , 2001;

Walker, 2004; Wilson, 1985). Despite my notion that in early grade levels (kindergarten

through third or fourth grade perhaps) students should be encouraged to freely express

themselves, an art education curriculum should foster an environment that stresses the

importance of work and intellectual development. Having read Suzi Gablik’s, The

Reenchantment of Art, I have come to another conclusion that art should be less

concerned with the self and art for art’s sake notions. She comments on moderns, or

even post-moderns like Rauschenberg, Tony Cragg and Bill Woodrow as “artists who

scavenge the beaches or city streets for discarded materials that might serve in their

art….these artists have “collected” the trash, but not because of any concern with

pollution; they wanted to expand the boundaries of aesthetic expression”(Gablik, 1991,

p. 133). It is likely that art, like the aforementioned, has a lot to do with the uninitiated

wanting to have nothing to do with it, much less having their students or children “study”

it. Therefore, if art like the kind Gablik is referring to above is one of the main reasons

why art is experiencing a decline in interest in today’s schools, then perhaps the time

has come to present art education as a study of visual culture that is also rooted in

archeology, anthropology, psychology, mythology, and sociology (Delacruz, 1995;

Walker, 2004). My contention too is there should be a fostering of what some would say

are innate proclivities towards the caring and even the spiritual. Thus, a striving toward

a way of living that respects the earth, people, and other living things. (Campbell, 1991;

Delacruz, 2009; Gablik, 1992; Jung, 1961; Moore, 1992).Reading Gablik has only

reinforced and given validity to my instincts about much modern and post-modern art

that I have been unable to get excited about, but nonetheless, supported because of my

belief in the cause of artistic freedom. I concur with those that I think much of what

modern art has done, and what a lot of post-modern art does, is alienate people, and I


question this as a philosophy that can do anything towards sustaining humanity in these

perilous times.

With the exceptions of a few things I have written and maybe few recent pieces I

have made, my art has not delved much into areas of social justice. A work of art that is

presenting a beauty or a visual sensation that may stimulate on some level, is more the

tacked I’ve taken over the years. However Byzantine it may appear, perhaps my art

speaks to the need to not take the world and life for granted by presenting the splendor

of what may be deemed simple even everyday things. Nonetheless, I do often consider

how to make art that more directly speaks to social justice concerns and this Art

Education program has certainly inspired me to try harder toward that as an area of

exploration. My interests in working with learners is as probably stronger now than

before I began this program. There have been a lot of self affirmation experiences of

late due to studying art education and I look forward to being able to apply my

knowledge and experiences helping to inspire people to also explore the world through

art making.

References

Ivashkevich, O. (2006). Drawing in children’s lives. In J. Fineberg (Ed.), When we were

young: Perspectives on the art of the child (pp. 45-59).Los Angeles: University of

California Press.

Delacruz, E. M. (1995). Multiculturalism and the tender years: Big and little questions.

In C. M. Thompson (Ed.), The visual arts and early childhood learning (pp. 101-

106). Reston: National Art Education Association.

Delacruz, E. M. (2009). Art education in the age of new media: Toward global civil

society. Art Education, 62(5), 13-18.

Gablik, S. (1992). The reenchantment of art. London: Thames and Hudson.

Jung, C. G. (1964). Man and his symbols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Moore, T. (1992). Care of the soul. New York: Harper Collins.

Toku. M. (2001). What is Manga? The influence of pop culture on adolescent art. Art

Education, 54(2), 11-17.

Vygotski, L. S. (1929). The problem of the cultural development of the child II. Journal of


Genetic Psychology, 36, 415-32. Retrieved from

http://webpages.charter.net/schmolze1/vygotsky/

Walker, S. (2004). Artmaking in an age of visual culture: Vision and visuality. Visual Arts

Research, 30(2), 23-37

Wilson, B. (2005). Child art after Modernism: Visual culture and new narratives. In E. W. Eisner & M. D. Day (Eds.),Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp 299-328). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.

Wilson, B. (1985). The artistic tower of Babel: Inextricable links between culture and graphic development. Visual Arts Research, 11(1), 90-104.

http://webpages.charter.net/schmolze1/vygotsky/

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