Let’s Answer the Question: Why do People Make Art? About six year ago, there was a really disrespectful fifth grade. They were use to the prior art teacher. I am fully aware that year was all about testing me until I became grounded. It was during that year, that a 5th grader questioned why I was having them do the art. “OH MY!!!” Now this 5th grade was such a disrespectful group, that I just wanted to blurt out so many things that would not have helped the situation in any way. I did respond to his question with things like building critical thinking, problem solving, and using one’s imagination. Also, I pointed to the model of quality instruction that listed the why. But I have reflected on that moment since. The answer I gave did not satisfy me. There are many reasons for why people make art. Let’s answer the question: Why do people make art?
Why do people make art?
There is much out there to defend the art curriculum in the school system. However, after six years of reflecting and working out reasons for why I was teaching this or that lesson, I decided this was the year to conquer the question in depth. Why do people make art? I gave the students plenty of reasons on day one. To illustrate why people make art, the students drew a series of pictures. Let’s Answer the Question: Why do People Make Art?
Let’s answer the question: Why do people make art?
- Feelings, the expression of one’s personal emotions
- To share, ideas, thoughts, and make connections
- Storytelling, make believe, play acting, imagination
- Draw out ideas, to put on paper or in the physical world what is in one’s head
- Just to play with the basic elements of art, to play with media
- Experiment, play, to construct: especially with found objects. assemblage
- Advertise, market, and sell a product
- To bring out thought provoking topics through one’s art
- Educate or teach about an idea, human history, some sort of content or message
- Recording memories or things from the past through pictures instead of words
- For a challenge, to see if one can make art and possibly make art from nothing
- Inspiration, inspire oneself or others
- Relaxation and fun, to simply enjoy the process and get into a flow, for enjoyment, one just likes making art
- Decoration, having objects and picture in one’s home is uplifting
- For function, having a functional bowl with pattern is nice and blankets with designs are more fun
- Problem solve, to visually see the problem in front of oneself can be helpful to solve a problem
- To have others reflect and respond to one’s own art
What did students draw to Answer the question: Why do people make art?
How did students respond to the list provided. First, students drew a picture of themselves and how they felt on the first day of school. Art expresses emotions. Next, they drew a picture that showed something they did during the summer, which is a record of their history. Then, they came up with a new object to sell. Here they had to plan, problem solve, and illustrate their idea. Furthermore, they took that idea and drew it into a poster layout to try and advertise it, so people would want to buy it. Students focused on some kind of holiday, celebration, or tradition. So in their next drawing they needed to illustrate their personal story to teach us about how they celebrate or honor that special occasion.
Lastly, there was the aspect of storytelling, which led to art is fun. With this drawing, students chose characters and setting. Thus connecting to story writing and picture books with illustrations. I asked two different students to tell an animal to include in our picture. Then I asked two different students to explain what the animals are wearing. Of course, I had to emphasize that it had to be appropriate for school. Another student came up with a setting or place that the animals are going to be talking to each other. And another student explained the weather.
Students drew their picture using the provided details. They may use word balloons or write a sentence or two that gives more to the story in the picture. Finally, this one ends the series with that extra fun that makes art enjoyable.
Art is Fun…
Of course, more reasons and elaborations on what is written could be developed. However, these seem to make sense to the students. Likewise, they satisfy my desire to justify why I am passionate about making and teaching art. As the school year started I started with just a few of these and eventually the list morphed and grew. In addition, some students knew some of these answers and contributed to the list that I was trying to work through. For example, the concept that art is fun was an overwhelming acknowledgement, that I honestly did not have on my original list.
A Side Reflection:
Finally, I have concluded that after all this reflection, it is about how the subject is presented to the students that brings the enjoyment. Since that class left and I established myself as the art teacher in the building, I have found no other student that challenged why they were making art. Conversely, now most of the students look forward to art. Resulting in classes that don’t want to leave art when their scheduled time is up, which is a testament to the power of art being fun and yet full of possible connections to ongoing learning.
What about you?
Have you found students that challenge why they are in art? Or maybe they ask what is the purpose of art? Hopefully the list presented here will help you in responding. More importantly, the list will help the students understand why we make art.
The following links will provide activities that connect with reasons that people make art:
- To play, experiment, meet a challenge, and make up games: https://snyderssunshineartstudio.com/sugar-and-play-dough-is-an-interesting-mix/
- To problem solve and make pretty picture because it is enjoyable: https://snyderssunshineartstudio.com/how-to-draw-different-flowers-with-lots-of-lines/