(
I scribed this parody piece in reponse to Slate's Hive post 'America Needs More Scientists and Engineers.' See Derek's In the Pipeline response, here.)
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If you stare at the work long enough, you realize
that the man in the top hat sitting by the tree loves science
Source: artic.edu |
When I was a college Freshman - back when there were
Day-Glo paints but no
Instagram - I dropped by the studios of the Fine Arts professors. I asked them what the future job market might be like for illustrators. They said, if I wanted to go into the 'creative' fields, I needed to devote myself to a discipline, say, early Mayan pottery, or pinhead
sculpture. Later, I could become a generalist (which I think meant starting an internet
comic).
It was the best advice I never followed. Today, I'm a lab researcher, sculpting compounds, drawing structures, and loving life. I ducked drawing murals for distilling solvents, social science for real science - another
political cartoonist lost to America. I wouldn't have been a great artist, but I might have been OK.
America needs Thomas
Kinkades and Andy Warhols, but it
really needs a lot more good artists, more expressive artists, more mediocre artists, and more starving artists.
In theory, "artsiness" has never been cooler. America sanctifies Steve Jobs (the iPod designer), and envies da Vinci (the Renaissance man-
cum-robotic surgeon). There are hipster sculptors, hipster poets, and hipster, well...hipsters. There's
20x200, an entire industry devoted to finding unknown artists, and letting you buy a slice. And yet, American art is in crisis: in this economy, gigs and commissions are tough to come by. Much of our great art comes from overseas (Italy, Japan, Russia) because there aren't enough artists here at home. And many of our best visual and musical minds are snatched up by mainstream media, producing viral apps (
Draw Something) or 'selling out' their musical talents (American Idol).
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In this piece, Pollock foresees the 2007 recession
Source: The Well-Read Fish |
President Obama says we are facing a "
Calvin & Hobbes moment." In a time of struggling economic recovery, record deficit spending, and rising student loan debt, we need someone able to
scream for all of us, even if we can't. Who better to capture the rapture on the face of a Fortune 500 executive, as he poses for a bronze bust commemorating his latest restructuring? Who will sketch the unemployed as they wait with them in line for assistance checks? Who will take inverted
pictures of "pre-abandoned" homes in a down housing market?
How can we educate more and better painters, inkers, writers, sculptors, singers, dancers, poets, chalkers, illustrators, comedians, lyricists, or underground
graffiti artists? How can we repeat the successes of 500 years ago? How can we persuade kids with artistic inclinations to
stay in the arts?
All month, Just Like Cooking will be mulling over this question...while running reactions and thinking about science. Readers, if you've got a notion - a
Kodachrome flash bulb above your head - submit your art education ideas in the comment section.