Creating a Social Context.

The role of artists (and of art educators) extends far beyond making art; it includes creating a milieu for art. It requires artists to actively articulate the meanings of their work to others.

David Burton 2001 NAEA National Higher Education Art Educator Associate Professor of Art Education, VCU Arts Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia 

SA: David, you've been preparing teachers of art for a number of years. Have there been any ways that your approach to teaching has changed significantly over the years?

DB: When I began teaching, I believed very deeply in an auteur strategy, an art-for-art's-sake approach emphasizing individual expression and creativity. However, the auteur strategy quickly led me to an obvious contradiction--students learn best when they have the solid emotional support of their peers, parents, and teachers, yet continually emphasizing individual differences tends to isolate and separate students from one another.

While expression and creativity remain important artistic goals, I came to realize that they are not the whole story in the education of an artist. Individual expression only really works when it finds its place within a social context; idiosyncratic creativity rings hollow if it fails to communicate its message to other people. Over the years, my perspective has broadened considerably to encompass social and cultural roles and practices for both artists and art educators.

SA: So how would you characterize your teaching today?

DB: The role of artists (and of art educators) extends far beyond making art; it includes creating a milieu for art. It requires artists to actively articulate the meanings of their work to others. In this respect, exhibiting art complements making art. It fulfills the personal, expressive compulsion through a public, interactive celebration. Exhibition completes the creative cycle and provides the emotional reinforcement each artist needs to push on to the next artistic act.

Although many art programs have occasional displays of art or an annual show, art exhibition still remains a peripheral activity, outside the art curriculum mainstream. Moreover, the art teacher usually makes most of the decisions and does most of the work, which prevents art students from cultivating their own audiences and attaining closure for their own artistic achievements. Most sadly, they do not learn the wide array of skills and concepts needed to exhibit art.

Over the last 25 years, my approach to teaching has gradually shifted towards methods that favor making connections, fostering social dynamics, and using art to bring people together. I now emphasize actively creating a social context f6r art, particularly through art exhibition.

SA: What changes do you hope that your students will be able to make in schools in the years to come?

DB: We are on the cusp of so many changes in education at the present moment--new standards for learning, assessment, technology, and curricular initiatives. It is an exciting time for education in general, and for art education, in particular. Teachers entering art education now have so many more demands on them, but also, so many more opportunities. My dearest hope is that they will seize the moment, and become leaders in all these new initiatives.

Art is a powerful social force. History shows us again and again that art holds the world together even as it changes it. However, to change the world, art must be present in the world, and that means moving beyond the precincts of the artroom. Art is made to be seen, and the more, the better. Art exhibition must play an essential part in every student's art education.

I believe my students will find the power as well as the beauty in art, and they, in turn, will teach both to their students.