Long Lake: fairy condos, originally uploaded by leyaevelyn.
Then there is the survey that shows people who fold their toilet paper use more paper than those who crumple it up. What I want to know is why anyone would take the time and money to do such a survey. And also why any one would take the time to fold their toilet paper.
Even, as a current study shows, if 50% of youth, are unemployed, and probably underemployed because the jobs are not there to match their skills and education, it would still be a benefit to society to have creative minds possibly thinking up new industries and economies, not just surveys. It is well known that 1% of the graduating students from art colleges will make over $10,000 a year. So much for degrees.
Apparently President Obama thinks teaching the arts in schools is important. My friend Brian gave me a link to a story saying eight schools across the U.S. will be funded to teach artistic practices. “Citing a federal study published in May 2011, the group contends that far from being a superfluous agent in school reform, arts education programs are significantly correlated with higher GPA and SAT scores, improvement in spatial-temporal IQ scores, and that students with access to arts education are more self-confident, engaged, and cooperative with teachers and peers.”
The program will call on a range of strategies to integrate art, music, dance, theater, and other forms of creative expression into the schools’ curricula. The program will call on a range of strategies to integrate art, music, dance, theater, and other forms of creative expression into the schools’ curricula. Well known people are volunteering to set up the programs and work with the schools, among them Chuck Close, Yo Yo Ma and Sarah Jessica Parker.
I was lucky with my education. Good schools, great teachers and parents who believed in artistic development. I don’t think they thought I would take it this far, but they didn’t try to stop me. Sometimes I wonder if what I do is work. I call it that, give it status, work passionately and consistently, produce paintings and support suppliers of art materials. Sometimes I think I have a decent body of work, enough that it would be okay to die now. Certainly that is the only way I’ll stop.
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