What is the relationship between art and the mind? This is a seemingly simple question, yet it gives birth to numerous other vexing concerns that are central to art education:
How do artists think through making?- Why is it that some encounters with art stir the human spirit and heighten awareness while others do not?
- What art exemplars are most relevant and useful at each stage of development?
- Is it better for young makers to develop formal understandings and technical competence before they are encouraged to engage in creative expression and meaning-making? Or should these learnings occur hand in hand?
Why is it that some encounters with art stir the human spirit and heighten awareness while others do not?
A busy art educator might turn to Google for quick answers. I typed into the search bar on my computer, “What is the relationship between art and the mind?” My query generated almost one billion results—962,000,000 to be precise—from a range of sources. I found that the question has inspired numerous books (e.g., CitationDewey, 1934; CitationEisner, 2004; CitationGreene, 1995; CitationIngold, 2013; CitationWinner, 2019). I also found plenty of TED Talks, YouTube videos and webinars, websites, podcasts, and blogs, some of them more reliable sources than others. Deciphering all this information would be an enormous undertaking.
What can art educators do to find credible answers to pressing questions and support to advance their practice? Refereed conferences are one way professionals can access and share information. At the 2020 National Art Education Association (NAEA) National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, thousands of art educators and stakeholders interested in visual arts education will convene in person for 3 days to present aspects of their art education practice and to learn from each other.
What can art educators do to find credible answers to pressing questions and support to advance their practice?
Art educators also connect and share knowledge virtually. Through Collaborate, NAEA's online forum, members post questions and pronouncements on any number of issues, engage in discussion and debate asynchronously, and share resources. Collaborate provides a social space where information can be generated relatively quickly through a crowdsourcing method. Topics are free-flowing and unmoderated. Facebook and other social media platforms are similar. Individuals can respond to each other spontaneously, much like during in-person social interactions. They may “like” the content or not, reply with a written comment, friend or follow the author, or choose to disengage altogether. These qualities make social media a potentially fruitful way for professional conversations to take place (CitationLucero et al., 2016).
Art Education is another resource for people who have questions about art, visual culture, design, and museum education. The journal's editorial process distinguishes it from other sources of knowledge creation and dissemination mentioned earlier. For instance, readers might notice that each issue of the journal is organized around a theme. Except in the case of a special issue, the themes are not determined in advance. Instead, they emerge from the manuscripts that people send into the journal.
This issue about “Art and the Mind” is a good example. In each article, the authors address different types of questions and problems—how to deal with human emotions through art, how to cultivate curiosity about a work of art, and how to facilitate reflective and meditative practices with works of art. As the senior editor, I noticed that the authors shared an interest in internal and metacognitive processes. When grouped into a single issue, their collective ideas and stories of practice offer readers a cohesive yet multifaceted discussion about the relationship between art and the mind, making and thinking, practice and theory.
There are other distinguishing qualities that make this journal a vital resource. In the interest of brevity, I will highlight just a few of them. First, Art Education focuses on publishing new ideas as well as fresh perspectives on old ideas, evidence-based research, reflective essays, and instructional resources. In most if not all cases, the writing and accompanying images are instigated by a problem, question, or curiosity that the author then investigates.
Art Education focuses on publishing new ideas as well as fresh perspectives on old ideas, evidence-based research, reflective essays, and instructional resources.
Second, articles published in Art Education make connections between what is generally known from existing theories and research and what is actually happening in settings such as classrooms, studios, museum galleries, online communities, and public gathering places. In this way, theory informs practice, and practice builds, complicates, or refutes theory.
Making connections between what is generally known and what is actually happening.
Third, anyone may write for Art Education. The journal has an open submission policy and an editorial board of 30 reviewers who mentor authors with constructive feedback to help clarify and strengthen their manuscripts prior to publication. Writing is a form of professional development. It benefits both the writers—who wish to share their insights and stories of practice with a wider audience—and the readers—who learn something new, find evidence to support what they already do, or are inspired to rethink their practice.
Anyone may write for Art Education.
There are numerous ways to find answers to one's questions. As technology advances, methods for creating and disseminating knowledge will proliferate. It is unclear if such methods will lead to more relevant answers or more trustworthy sources from which to build professional practices. I do feel confident conjecturing that, as with now, each new method will have its own virtues and limitations, and these qualities will influence the information that is produced and consumed. Art Education stands out in this knowledge landscape for offering informed, practice-led inquiries that open up new ways of thinking about and engaging in art, visual culture, design, and museum education.
In this issue, authors explore the connections between art and human systems for processing information, emotions, and experiences (i.e., the mind). Chelsea M. Odden discusses the results of a year-long investigation into how best to teach reflection practices to high school art students and scaffold their use in the context of a personally relevant art unit. Rebecca Williams and Elizabeth Debban describe how high school students and preservice art teachers collaboratively moved through the artistic processes of creating, presenting, responding, and connecting, as outlined in the National Core Arts Standards, and grew in unexpected ways as a result of their shared dialogue. Yichien Cooper and co-author Enid Zimmerman, as well as Hyunji Kwon, present different graphic strategies that educators and students can use to make abstract concepts more concrete and thinking processes more visible.
Other authors focus on emotional and sensory aspects of artistic engagement. Carissa DiCindio looks at how experiences with works of art can be designed and facilitated to encourage wonder, laughter, and an attitude of discovery. Merfat Bassi tells a story of what happens when artmaking is practiced as a form of meditation and discusses the benefits and challenges learners are likely to encounter with meditative art practices. In the Instructional Resources section, Allison Rogers shows how educators can use artworks by Jacques-Louis David, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Iri and Toshi Maruki to help learners understand loss, grief, and commemoration. For readers who want to go deeper with this topic, additional online resources, training modules, and collaborative projects are provided.
Just as these authors shed light on the internal processes and qualities of art engagement, I hope I also have demystified internal processes and qualities of this journal. If you are interested in possibly contributing to Art Education, you can learn even more by attending the “Writing for Art Education” session at the NAEA Convention in March 2020, or you may contact the journal at the address below.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Amelia M. Kraehe
Amelia M. Kraehe, Associate Professor, Art and Visual Culture Education, School of Art, The University of Arizona in Tucson.
References
- Dewey, J. (1934). Art and experience. New York, NY: Capricorn Books.
- Eisner, E.W. (2004). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Ingold, T. (2013). Making. New York, NY: Routledge.
- Lucero, J., Nichols, A., Stienecker, D., Nisbett, J.E., Lewis, L., Hyatt, J., … Rolling, J.H., Jr. (2016). Metalogue and autoconstrucción: Two models for collaborative publishing by busy practitioners. Art Education, 69(5), 32–39.
- Winner, E. (2019). How art works: A psychological exploration. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.