Art of Life

I grew up surrounded by art.

My mother is an accomplished artist whose work is moving in ever more interesting directions.  My father is an artist and a poet.  The two of them ran their own art gallery in Michigan for exactly 40 years.  (If you want to fall in love with my parents just click that last link for a short film my brother made.)  The art gallery spilled over into our home and we were always surrounded by unusual and beautiful things.  When you are young you assume there is nothing unique about your own experience.  So for us that's what life was supposed to be like--bursting at the seams with art.

It was years before I realized other people didn't hang and rehang original work all over their homes like a gallery.  That maybe it was special to have your own childish work framed with acid free mats and mounted on the wall in the same room as a print by Picasso or Whistler.  We even had a press for printing etchings in our basement that my brothers and I mostly found amusing for crushing broken crayons with in the gears.  We had frame samples to play with and professional quality colored pencils to use.  Sure, occasionally a painting we liked that had been hanging over the bed for years might get sold and go away, but there was always something new to enjoy.  Art was just part of life.

Milwaukee Art Museum by moonlight tonight as we were leaving

But that isn't true for everyone, or even many, and I wish that weren't the case.  I know firsthand what it means to expect there to be art around.  Drawing in our house wasn't just something you could do, it was something you simply did.  Surrounding yourself with beauty was a necessity, not an afterthought.  Art was built into everything and was integral to how we viewed the world.

Quinn at the museum

My own children are also surrounded by art.  Not to the explosive degree that I was, but we keep the craft area of our house well stocked with supplies that they indulge in often, and we have some wonderful things on our walls, including pieces by artists we know (such as their grandma).  They recognize a Hundertwasser when they see it, and if you asked them to create something in the style of van Gogh or O'Keefe they would know how to give it a shot.

So even though I don't fear for my own children's art education I'm still distressed that funding for art was cut from their school a couple of years ago.  Fernwood Montessori has a high level of parental involvement, however, so despite budget cuts to the public schools there have been volunteers to keep some kind of art program running for our kids.  But what does it say about our priorities when we provide so few resources for education that they feel they must cut art?

Art is not expendable.  Art is life.