Issues in Contemporary Arts Education

"Art is Transformation"

10"x20" Acrylic and Collage on Deep Gallery Cradled Wood Board (click picture to see it large)

This piece, created for Independent Project for UF Master's of Art Education class, Issues in Contemporary Art Education, is my visual representation of the issues surrounding the state of art education in my immediate community.

The arts, but more specifically, visual arts are often fighting for a legitimate role within the school curriculum. Most of the time, they are also fighting for funding.

With this piece I wanted to show the juxtaposition of the old and new. The traditional and the digital. The real vs. the virtual.

I chose to use the butterfly, because it represents transformation. The butterfly goes thru a metamorphosis. When students are exposed to arts and creativity, they experience a transformation. They grow and they change.

I used origami because although it is an ancient form of art from Japan, it is currently used both as an art form and as means of helping scientific and medical advances. It represents the best of what art and creativity can do. It really can change lives.

I chose to make the butterflies out of money, because I wanted draw the attention to the need for funding. All the wonderful things that the modern world offers, as well as all the traditional supplies needed in an art classroom take money.

While students will be successful because of their brush with the arts, they will be inherently more successful if we empower the art educators with all the needed funds to really transform their students using every tool that is available; not just with the leftovers from the other classes' craft projects.