We need to add an “A” for art to the national STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education agenda and turn it to STEAM, writes guest columnist John Maeda.

John Maeda is president of Rhode Island School of Design and the author of “The Laws of Simplicity and Redesigning Leadership,” which expands on his Twitter feed at @johnmaeda

By John Maeda

Special to The Seattle Times

I tell people that I am a native of Seattle, but that I only knew it before it became cool. The creative economy hadn’t really happened yet — Boeing was the booming Microsoft equivalent back then; there was nascent grunge music and no coffee culture to speak of.

But amid the rain, and the fog, and the rain, and the rain, Seattle was home to the beginning of my journey traversing the fields of technology, art and design.
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I would like to preface this editorial by saying that Terrance Pratt could just as well be talking about the state of education in America. Education is being corroded by extreme right wing tax policies that are literally cutting the budgets of schools to the point of even closing schools. These ideological policies are destroying the foundations and principals that built a strong educational and Democratic system. Today reform is the hot topic and exactly what ideology prevails in the short and long term is what will determine the building of a strong social society or one that plunges our children into poverty and all the misery associated with it.

We have a moral responsibility to give our children the strongest education we can.  The Born to Draw art education platform advocates visual literacy, integrates art into core curriculum and it gives children and adults the permission to express the creativity of the Human Mind.  As Terrance Pratt so rightly states,

We study art, not because it will get us a job at Atlantis, but because it shows us and allows us to express the creativity of the human mind. In short, a good education system awakens in its students a sense of awe and wonder and engenders in its students a love of learning for learning’s sake.

I am a life-long learner working on the third, maybe fourth, act in my life which is allowing me to give back to a system, that when it was strong, gave me the tools to help change children’s lives. Let us develop a common core value for a future of critical thinkers who will pass the torch and allow light to shine on our Democratic principals on keeping our society strong in all the correct ways. Read more →

This exhibition features an early first edition of “Los Caprichos,” a set of eighty etchings by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes published in 1799. Included in the exhibition for comparison are other works by Goya.

To augment Goya’s “Los Caprichos” prints, the exhibition will also include the work of several contemporary artists including Enrique Chagoya, Jason Garcia (Santa Clara), Diego Romero (Cochiti), Roger Shimomura, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Flathead, Shoshone), and Masami Teraoka. Like Goya, these exceptional artists all incorporate social commentary and social critique as integral aspects of their work.

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Dean of Arts and Science Alistair MacLean attributes this to the pending retirement of one of the program’s three full-time professors (“I was concerned with admitting new students without being certain we could fulfill course requirements,” he said).

… “For MacLean any crisis is a broader one. In a tightening funding environment — Ontario schools have been told to expect no funding increases for at least six years — universities chase dollars wherever they can find them. Art programs, he says “can be seen as boutique — they take up lots of space, they have small classes. So if they’re not healthy, they’re vulnerable.”…

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Kniazuk’s arguments are locked and loaded, like live ammunition.
“You’ve got your art for art’s sake, you’ve got your quality of life, you’ve got your economic, you’ve got your tourism, you’ve got your education piece,” he said. “Then the last piece of the argument — and I’m probably forgetting a dozen other good ones — is [drawing] businesses and the creative class.”
“Quite frankly,” he continued, barely pausing to catch his breath, “it’s a model that other sectors of the economy should probably be trying to emulate.”

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A lovely story of random acts of kindness and art
Reprinted from NPR Creative Commons license

12:29 pm

November 30, 2011

by Robert Krulwich

He? She? It? Whoever it is, the Phantom Sculptor is suddenly back!
Book sculpture man standing outside
Enlarge Chris Scott/Flickr

As I recently reported, somebody has been dropping glorious little paper sculptures into libraries and museums all over Edinburgh, Scotland, and we’ve just heard (thank you, alert reader Paul Smith) that there are now three more.

And they will be the last.

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I was looking back at past students works from 1999 – 2006, at Santa Fe Community College. I was a drawing, painting and art history adjunct instructor and helped co-found, write grants and was the project director of the summer series program, Make Your Mark, that offered Visual and Performing Arts program college credit to high school students. We received a yearly $15,000 grant from the NEA and NMArts program.

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http://youtu.be/LQhSXcyDHLA

Shel Silverstein

Years from Now
Although I cannot see your face
As you flip these poems awhile,
Somewhere from some far-off place
I hear you laughing —and I smile.
Shel Silverstein

The dedication of Shel’s new book of poems published by Harper-Collins grabbed me. The simplicity and elegance of his line drawings makes drawing look so simple putting a pen to paper or a stylus to a tablet. What I found creative about looking at the Harper-Collins webpage was that it also included classroom activities. Activity guide was created by Sue Ornstein, a first-grade teacher in the Byram Hills School District in Armonk, New York.

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http://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY