Art Journal #6

3/6/2022

#CultureStrike

Not only does art contribute to society, it quite literally is the basis for culture. Before I even became an art major, I read this article called “Change the Culture, Change the World” by Favianna Rodriguez and it completely integrated how I might connect what I was learning to the art world. She says, “For years, these two worlds remained separate. Neither the arts-and-culture sector nor the social-justice sector was effectively building models for creative collaboration.” Her work embodies the effect of a “culture strike,” a convergence of sorts. Amid waves of political change such as the recent BLM movement, there are these climaxes that are defined by culture and most of the time, artists. “Culture is a space where we can introduce ideas, attach emotions to concrete change.” The narrative of culture is manipulated by artists and centralized by their work.

Favianna Rodriguez, "Pandemic Portal AP" (2021)

Per Rodriguez’s instruction, it’s our jobs as art educators to show young artists that their work both fluctuates between actions and ideas and serves to inspire change. A caveat of social justice-inspired artwork is that artists often create works that communicate what it is they are against, instead of what they are about or who they are. This limits conversation for those on the other side of the issue and discourages discussion of grey areas. Rodriguez offers the following example:

I think it’s also important to mention how advocating for the arts is also a social justice movement that art teachers can contribute to, alongside their students. During my first year at CSU, I took “LEAP 200: Advocacy for Arts,” and I learned about the widespread defunding of art education after laws like NCLB and the Common Core curriculum came into play. We also talked a lot about how the Reagan Administration tried to dismantle that National Endowment for the arts completely. I know that this might sound a little far-fetched to some folks, but I personally think that it’s important to show students how this impacts their access to either visual or performance-based art education. If students understood how much their programs are devalued and defunded, they might help contribute to the greater movement that art teachers fight for every single day.

On a personal note, my own mom actually started out in an art education program in the 90s and ended up changing her major to elementary education due to fear that there would be no art classrooms to teach in, by the time she graduated.

I have also written a research paper on the connections between education and eugenics movements and how this eventually impacted the arts. Here’s an excerpt:

“…race is intertwined with cognitive ability, and this connects to the eugenicist theory that enabled the government to devalue and quite literally defund communities considered unintelligent. We can see this in the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2001, which increased the importance of STEM subjects and standardized testing therein. As a result, exposure to the arts was decreased especially in Black/African American and Latiné communities. “The result [of NCLB] is a lack of quality of life that systematically denies access and equity for these communities, robbing students of significant opportunities for critical, creative, cross-cultural engagement.” This act alone has reinforced the ideals of eugenicists, and has successfully impacted students of color in a way that doesn't allow them to receive the educational experience that they deserve. This all makes sense if we understand the origins of the eugenics movement.”

This research paper aimed to locate the intersectionality of the Advocacy for the Arts movement and how access to the arts is greatly determined by white, male, wealthy politicians. I know that I am bound to teach within a community that has been deeply affected by underfunding and lack of resources for the arts. Educating students on: the eugenics movement, how it has infiltrated itself into the arts, and the importance of nonwestern methodologies and histories, will help dismantle these oppressive systems. These inequities have been maintained by the system of education and inspired by both eugenicists and capitalists. I would have students create art as a response to this information, as I can only imagine how one might feel as they come to understand a history of repression of creativity that exists specifically in marginalized groups. If enough people know about these inequities, then it is my hope that it will create the culture strike that Rodriguez was referring to. We might just build that connection between social justice and the arts that she creates in her own work.

It is also important that as I work in marginalized communities, I understand my own privileges as a white educator. Growing up, my own rural community definitely experienced a lack of access to the arts, and I can only imagine what this might look like for communities of color, especially those in urban areas as they experience a regularly defunded system that has both a lack of teachers and resources. It is my job to use my privilege to advocate for the needs of my students as they have the right to an educational experience that involves both creativity and analytical thinking.

So as I continue in the field of art education, I am thankful that the field of Ethnic Studies as I know it will be vital to creating an experience for my students that is inclusive, equitable, and above all; deserving. It is a fact that the education system and its policies were derived from the Eugenics movement. And it is also a fact that students are still experiencing the consequences of this today. I just hope that as an art educator I can work to dismantle the system of oppression that I will work within as I attack its ableist and racist policies and encourage my students to do the same. And as a result, not only will these histories and their effect be known, but an entire system can itself be disabled.

Rodriguez offers three areas in which we can consider a cultural shift that integrates social justice and the arts:

1. Narrative Shifting - How can you as an educator shift social justice issues from what students are against and emphasize what they are for?

2. Infrastructure Building - Rebuild art education and art institutions to encourage artists to make art for the public sector and not as a capitalistic venture.

3. Policies that Create Equity for Artists - Schools and districts that value the arts need to push to create opportunities for marginalized students to actually attend and thrive in these spaces.

Per my other entries, the art piece that I am working on integrates everything that I am learning in this class. This week, we worked on integrating social justice works into our peer teaching lesson. In my research in the field of Ethnic Studies, specifically race and gender dynamics, I suggested that we introduce how sustainable structures, forms, and arts are often only accessible to the wealthy, elite, white classes. One way you can think about the accessibility behind an art-making form is by considering its history. For example, artist and professor, Rowland Ricketts divulges the dark history of Indigo dying processes, specifically on cotton in the United States. In a nutshell, both indigo and cotton were cash crops that enslaved peoples grew and harvested. It’s important that artists acknowledge the history behind their practices. In this case, we recognize that this practice was quite literally developed on the backs and through the work of Black Americans. To commemorate the work and atrocities that Black and African Americans experienced in relation to my own Indigo-dyed cotton work, I have done a black pour over the canvases.

The black pour-over serves to:

• Demonstrate how social justice can be integrated into the art-making process

• Portray the dark history of indigo and cotton dyeing histories in the United States

• Integrate many concepts and big ideas into a single work

• Emphasizes the narrative shifting as I am illuminating the dark history of this practice that is inherently tied to race and capitalism