| 'Dear
Mr. Wilkoff," begins a letter from a Bronx mother
to the principal of her child's elementary school. "For
as long as I can remember, our family has always
been off schedule. With both of us working and
the children always engaged in their own things,
I can't
remember when we last set [sic] down together,
not even for a Sunday meal. "Then
something changed. You can imagine how I felt when
I came in from shopping one evening and found my
entire family at the kitchen table. It was covered
in newspaper, wooden pieces, glue, paint, pipe cleaners
and all sorts of interesting items.
"At the
head of the table sat Papa. He was grinning
from ear to ear as he held up
the beginning of one of the most beautiful
wood sculptures I've ever seen. Each child
had a wonderful piece of work in front of him/her.
My kitchen was a wreck, and I was delighted.
That evening for the first time in many years
we came together as a total family."
Mother, father and children had all been touched
by the golden wand of Studio in a School, a
nonprofit organization that brings creative
arts education to New York's underserved communities.
When Agnes Gund, founder of Studio and current
president of the Museum of Modern Art, first
conceived the idea 25 years ago, her premise
was this: that all children deserved access
to an arts education because the creative process
of art-making is as essential to their development
as mathematics or reading. Gund had been spurred
into action when she read a New York Times
article about how budget cuts in the mid-1970s
were killing arts and music programs at all
public schools.
"I went to Pat Hewitt" organization<"to
try to get some art programming back into the
schools. I also wanted something that would
benefit artists, too, that would give them
a livelihood. That turned out to be the best
idea."
It lead to the novel idea of a private organization
that would hire professional artists and place
them in underserved public elementary schools
to establish a dedicated art studio and a long-term
art program.
Hewitt recalls
that many people were skeptical at first. "They
said something that's been initiated by a
private entity will just
never be accepted by the schools. 'You have
to realize that you're bringing in outside
artists Ed [Education]. The Board of Ed can't
hire or fire them.' It works so well now and
it's so well accepted that it's hard to imagine,
but at the time it was something quite revolutionary."
While it's true that the program's success
is now widely recognized Gund received a National
Medal of Arts for her vision successes generated
in individual lives that Gund finds the most
satisfying.
Occasionally,
in Studio's Early Childhood Program (which
brings art instruction to three-
to seven-year-olds in childcare and temporary
housing facilities), Fran Van Horn, deputy
executive director at Studio, has come across "elective
mutes." More often than not, she says,
they are children who have recently immigrated
and are caught in a linguistic limbo.
These little toddlers can talk, want to talk,
and yet are so anxious at the thought of doing
so that they remain silent. Then one day they
are given an art assignment that captures their
imagination and inspires a piece so important
to them that they simply cannot remain quiet
any longer. The dam is broken and their voice
joins the stream of excited chatter around
them.
One fifth-grade
teacher from P.S. 16 Academy writes in a
letter of appreciation, "I
find it difficult to put into words how positively
Studio in a School has influenced my students.
Last year, two of my students were chosen to
show their work at the gallery in Manhattan.
These were students who struggled academically,
and suddenly they were being honored. The full
experience of the Studio helps to build self-esteem
in our students." Finding that they can
excel, or at least avoid being told that they
are "wrong," the children begin to
appreciate that they are as multi-dimensional
as a multiple choice test is not.
The benefits,
though, are not just the boon of a marginalized
few. The partnership between
teacher and artist requires the teacher to
be heavily involved in the creative process.
The result is a collaboration in which art
is used to reinforce lessons taught in other
classes: painting exercises draw upon the animals
studied in biology classes, printmaking is
inspired by a foreign country introduced in
social studies, and so on. Van Horn said, "Teachers
begin to understand that what we do in art
is a parallel process to what's going on in
writing: drafts, revisions, talking about work,
reading work aloud. We're doing the same thing,
essentially, in visual arts."
R epeatedly,
artists, teachers and administrators alike
clarify that Studio is not a talent program
that seeks out the next Picasso. Rather, they
say, it nurtures the "creative process" in
every child, encouraging original thought,
unique ideas and experimentation.
It would be
a mistake to infer, however, that Studio
classes are somehow less demanding than
other academic subjects. Gail Gregg, Studio's
board president, who is by training a journalist
and a painter herself, said, "Art is an
intellectual process of intellectual juice."
Damali Miller,
veteran Studio artist, works with two third-graders
on a papier-mâché project.
The young girls want to construct a two-legged
sunflower-girl whose limbs curl out in whimsical
spirals. Miller explains to them that this
design will not be able to hold up the figure
and urges them to think of an alternative solution.
At first, their shoulders slump in dejection
and their little lips protrude into pouts.
Yet, minutes later, the little girls are hunched
over their sketch, brows furrowed anew in concentration
as they return to the drawing board.
Miller confirms, "It's
not all thought out for them. They have to
figure it out for
themselves. If you figure it out for them,
then they'll never learn that the whole point
is for them to develop their own creative thinking."
So why the lack of support education? After
all, Studio itself has reached 30,000 children,
143 schools and awarded $44.3 million in services
to New York City's public schools. And yet
Studio saw half a million dollars in government
funding cut from its $4.5 million budget this
year.
Hewitt, reflecting
back on the early years of the program, said
that, compared with how
it was in the '70s, "the funding situation
is just as dire, if not more so." Why
is that? Robert Freeman, dean of the College
of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at
Austin, notes in his study, "Public Funding
of the Arts," that other major industrial
powers spend 10 to 50 times more per capita
than the United States on public support of
the arts.
Nor does it
look as if the situation will get any easier.
A recent article in The New
York Times warns that a $305 million cut in
the school budget and will arguably hit the
arts the hardest. As one Studio staff member
commented, "Policy makers will pay lip
service to it<'Yes, we understand the importance
of the arts' spend their arts money on other
areas, then what kind of message does that
send?"
Gregg struggles
with this question of prioritization: "Art
should be a birthright for New York's children
and it's a crime if they all can't be exposed
to the arts that define our city."
"Seeds of Creativity," a
collaboration between Studio in a School
and the Asia Society
Museum, will feature artwork from four Studio
sites. The exhibition will be on display in
the museum's permanent gallery space, at 725
Park Avenue (70th Street) from May 14 to August
18.
| 
