Dear Art Educators,
Especially tertiary art educators, why are you teaching? Are you intending to train art professionals? At the primary level we nurture self-expression and appreciation for art. At the secondary level, we continue as with the primary but also encourage the acquisition of and the improvement on technical skills. At the tertiary level what are you doing? What are we doing? Are we nurturing art professionals or are we just working to pay the bills?
I know (much too well) that the work we do can often go unacknowledged and unappreciated. But why do you step into the classroom? What are your intentions? Who are you serving? Please prioritise your students and why they are before you. They likely are before you because there is a talent they wish to hone and a desire to speak with the language of art. They are relying on you to guide them, advise them, and even if they do not realise it, they need you to also stretch them. Stretch them – push them beyond themselves. No one should leave after a period of study with you as they came. They should know more, be able to do better, and be at least a little further along on the path to becoming top-notch in what they do.
Don’t be afraid of your students’ talent, their enthusiasm to grow, and their willingness to do the work growth and excellence entail. Guide them. Stretch them. Help them to speak using this language of elements and principles, aided by their proficiency with traditional and non- traditional art media. Help your students to find and use their voice; their own voice. It is not good if their work looks like a less refined version of your work. Your techniques need not be theirs, or your themes theirs. Help your students to gain confidence in the merit of their ideas and the use of their ‘visual voice’.
Dear Tertiary Art Educators, we need to do better!
Dear Artists,
Who are you making art for? Are you making art for the revolving community of expatriates because they are overwhelmingly the ones who are buying art in Guyana? While that may be so, can you paint, carve, do whatever you do to make art with regularity so that you always have new work to show when exhibition opportunities arise? We who are restrained by our pecuniary limits in supporting you but are regularly in attendance at art exhibitions deserve to be considered too. Not every exhibition needs to be approached as an opportunity to sell that which you could not when you last exhibited. I understand you may be short on storage space in your bedrooms and living rooms-turned-studios. But that is the nature of the game for some of us. Do you know how undervalued and unsupported Vincent was in his lifetime? But he persisted with his glorious cadmium yellows turned into sunflower blooms. Yes, the clutter may be real in your converted spaces but think about the fatigue of “de same ole, same ole” on viewers.
Think on this: would you like to leave your home, contend with the insanity of driving in Georgetown (anywhere along the coast to get to Georgetown) to see what you saw elsewhere weeks or months before? Perhaps you don’t mind. Nonetheless, I humbly suggest that you be discerning about how often you show particular work because audience fatigue is real. We don’t want to see ‘de same wuk ovah an ovah!’ But alas, I suspect that few are those of us who frequent exhibitions, making it a point to visit the bottom-house pop-up exhibition along with those at more conventional spaces so you feel the repeated showings go unnoticed. I humbly suggest even if one person notices the repetition that is too much.
I am hopeful, Dear Artists, that you consider my concern for what has become a pervasive practice among you, which has me questioning your individual stagnation.
Dear Art Students,
Oh my! So much I can say! But, what is most pressing? Do not – I beg you – study art if you are not passionate about it. I equate passion with seriousness. Studying art may look easy, but it is not. It takes immense amounts of time to hone skills. While your friends may be on the highway at a creek (living their best life as we now say) you may be toiling away trying to get something to look just right – life-like, like it can be picked up off the page or canvas or move despite its wooden or clay material. While your friends may be in the club, you might be saving your money because art materials are expensive! Quality paint is not cheap and brushes are not either. And while clay and wood logs may be acquired at no financial cost, they need to be transported and the tools to work them also come with a cost. The kilns to fire clay works are not cheap and they require infrastructure. Making art looks easy but it requires commitment of time and resources. Perhaps that is why so many who study art abandon it – reality hits! Light bills and water bills and food bills, oh my!
But, art student, you are willing to take the chance, so you are studying art. Work with your teachers! Do you think giving them a hard time – not doing assignments on time, not doing assignments well, not doing assignments at all, hurts them. It does not. It hurts you! You impede your growth, waste your time, and waste your money. Apply yourself with seriousness and discipline to get out of this art-study-thing as much as you can of what is on offer. And as you apply yourself, also be open to need ideas, new approaches, new materials and methods. Experiment. Test yourself. Stretch yourself. Avoid pigeonholing yourself. Feed your ideas from multiple sources. Practise speaking about your work. Write about your work. Assess what you say and what you write. Are the ideas written and spoken clear? Are the ideas you purport to be in your work evident?
Art is a language of communication. It is many things, but fundamentally it is a means of communication. What are you communicating? Is what you are communicating worth being said publicly? Art is a form of public communication and with that you have a responsibility.
All the best to you, Dear Art Students.
Akima McPherson is a multimedia artist, art historian, and educator
