The future belongs to the artist.
Like many visual artists, the written word is not my most natural medium choice. As I sat down to write this, I stared at the blank screen, more daunting to me than a blank canvas. I did what people these days do - I "googled" it. "What art does for kids" into the search engine, and the computer did what it does these days and spits out an infinite number of resources and information. I, of course, already knew the answer as I see, live, breathe it every single day. I scrolled through a few pages of headlines meant to grab your attention or give limited quick responses with minimal reading and effort. "The 5 benefits of art for kids". Wait, 5? Maybe 5,000. Keep scrolling. "The arts teach children valuable learning skills that can be used in life". Okay, mind-numbingly generic, but we are moving in the right direction. What is lacking in these responses? Well, in my opinion, the very essence of art itself - soul.
So what does art really do for kids? Everything.
Dr. Jordan Peterson once said "The Artists are the first people who articulate the unknown. The role of the artist in a healthy culture is to bring to public awareness elements of being which have not yet entered the collective consciousness".
To be said simply, art teaches us to be human. Does it help build fine motor skills, encourage imagination, and improve communication skills? Absolutely. I see the benefits of all of these things with children of all ages. It does so much more than that as well. It creates a connection. A connection of self: mind to hand, hand to paper/brush/lens. A connection to higher self: emotion to heart, heart to hand, hand to paper/brush/lens. A connection to nature: respect and awe that comes from the direct observation and conscious recreation of the spectacular world that surrounds us. A connection to human beings: the indescribable peace that comes from silent articulation of everything you have to say. A connection to the very thread of the universe that binds us all together. In a more literal sense, it is also a connection to our past and history, to our culture and community, and is a physical documentation of who we are and the experiences that we have. People to this day are still amazed and studying the cave paintings in France. 17,000 years ago, a human felt the urge to paint and listened. Now, centuries later, we still feel that incredible connection to our ancestors as we stand before the primal red color in simple shapes on rock canvas. It tells a story. Our story. At the time, that was a radical innovative unknown thing to do. A primal cry of "I exist!". It was to believe in a future, push consciousness forward, to think freely.
Art to me is not about the rouge glitter that you'll inevitably be finding for weeks to come, or stains on the kitchen table, or the occasional ruined shirt… In fact, I don't think those things have registered with me for a long time. Art, to me, is a way of life. It's the pride I feel when my child can recognize a Kandinsky or Monet that has been commercially immortalized on a box of chocolates and that they KNOW that the artist was more than that. Art is when a child from one of my art classes comes back again and tells me that they remembered something I taught them and tried it again in their own work, and they felt successful. When I look at art, I see the struggle and the triumph that every child needs to experience. I see clearly the benefits of healthy expression of emotion that extend from early childhood into inspiring and compassionate adults. Leaders. Philosophers. Inventors. Grass roots. Dope Souls.
This is why we create.