How come the arts have become disposable? I don't get it. But it's true.
In a recent New York Times article, op-ed columnist David Brooks writes, “When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting.” Brooks laments the diminishing numbers of students enrolling in liberal arts degrees in our colleges and universities stating that “the labs are more glamorous than the libraries.” Or, the art studios. Within the context of this economic and political environment, the oil disaster in the Gulf, and the immigration debates, the arts have been reduced to a disposable area of funding and an area of education that is one of the first things to go in budget cuts.
No wonder so many people today have such a hard time seeing clearly.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
-Marcel Proust, quoted in How To Be An Explorer Of The World by Keri Smith
As I find myself all around the continent working with values-based for profit, nonprofit, and church leaders in need of revisioning, remembering, renewing, one of the common denominators is that people have forgotten how to see. Organizations (and many people in them) keep trying to tweak their way out of messes because they can't see that their environment is different than it was yesteryear.
With my passion and background in design, I know how critical the arts are to opening eyes, hearts, and minds that have been shut down for whatever reason. That's why at ARE we rarely do a workshop, retreat, or training session that doesn't include at least a little drawing, building, or music-making.
The Wikipedia community defines art as “...the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. The author of How To Be An Explorer Of The World tells us “the Indo-European root of the word art is ‘to arrange’ or ‘fit together.’” And, Daniel Pink, whose book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future has been translated into 20 languages, makes the case for recapturing our ability to think creatively as the only way to both compete and succeed in this rapidly changing environment.
Want to find new solutions to the challenges you face? Here are 8 ideas for unleashing your indispensable inner artist:
- Start by re-exploring your own environment. Gather information. Listen to conversations being had at the coffee shop. Take notes. Sketch what you see.
- Doodle.
- Pay attention to the beauty that surrounds you on your way to work, the grocery store, the play ground. See what happens when you start connecting the dots between these seemingly unrelated things. Expect new discoveries, possibilities you have overlooked time and time again.
- Recapture the creativity of your kindergarten years. Color. Hang your drawings on the fridge.
- Make music. Sing along with the radio. Yodel in the shower.
- Use the stuff on your desk to build a prototype of the problem you're facing in order to see it differently.
- Play with your food and use it to make funny faces on your plate.
- Daydream about the books you'd love to write.
Engaging in the arts can open your eyes not only to what could be, but to what already is. Neither of those things is anywhere near "disposable."
Hey church leaders!
You might be interested in learning more about how to see with new eyes - click on the book cover below:
Comments