Schools as Galleries?

Toward the end of this summer I read uTOpia Volume 2: The State of the Arts Living with Culture in Toronto which is a fabulous book and really sparks your imagination when it comes to art and public spaces, whether you live in Toronto or elsewhere. I highly recommend you grab a copy - wherever you live. There are several authors in there I would still really like to talk to about their ideas.

Shortly after finishing it I was flipping around at the television and landed on - I don't know what it was. There were children and they were talking about art. All they seemed to know though was the Renaissance, and Da Vinci, Michelangelo, a few even threw in Van Gosh and Jackson Pollock. It struck me that this was like your music education being limited to Beethoven and Mozart, Elvis and the Beatles. Nothing wrong with any of them - still, somewhat incomplete. I should add here that I do not blame the schools for this, the arts generally take a back seat to everything else, in terms of both time and budget in most schools.

The combination of these two experiences led me to an idea. What if you could set aside a small area of the school, a little bit of wall somewhere and allow local contemporary artists to show off their work. Granted a public school is not an ideal gallery, kids will see it, and teachers, and perhaps some parents or other community members involved in the school. Even if it does not sell a single painting or print for anyone though I still think it is an idea worth exploring. It makes art alive for children, it makes the artists in their neighborhood as real as the firemen and policemen and bankers (all of whom are involved in the schools).

It has also been suggested to me, by a few teachers I've talked to that it would be ideal if the artist could come in at some point to discuss their work with the children - this is also an excellent idea. I think though that it would be best to not do it right away. What I remember from art in school is that you would occasionally take a field trip to see some art, but that it was so rapid fire that you could digest nothing. You were ushered quickly through the museum and generally someone talked while you glanced at paintings and statues. If you saw something you thought curious or intriguing you didn't really have time to stop or you'd fall behind and they'd make you wait on the bus.

By putting the art in the school for a few weeks , or a month (before hopefully someone else takes over) it gives students a chance to live with the art, to look at it for as long as they like and form opinions then perhaps when the artist comes in to present they will have something to say. Most importantly the children would be on the path to being adults who know about and think about art, not as a part of classical history, but as a current, ongoing, living, vibrant topic. The artist, as I said, is unlikely to sell anything, but perhaps - if a generation is created that knows about, thinks about and even buys art, it will pay the artists dividends down the road.

I have talked to a school in West Toronto that is at least interested on the surface, and future talks are going to come. Ideally the art should be local, but if you live in Calgary, or Vancouver, or Halifax there is a good chance that there are artists who will work with your school - or schools that will work with you as an artist. If anyone out there is interested in participating, please get in touch, even if we are in different parts of the country, we can certainly at least compare notes.