Flower Power
Mattison
: > Artist Mattison Fitzgerald adds Columbines to 'Flower Power'
: > Series
: >
: > May 12, 1999, Silicon Valley, San Jose, Ca.... Over the last year, I
: > have been working on a series of paintings called 'Flower Power'.
: > Today, I added a grouping of columbines to the series as a message
: > to American Artists and parents world wide to stand up for support
: > of creativity and the arts in your schools and neighborhoods and
: > communities. It is apparrent to me that why we are seeing youth in
: > America today continue to destroy each other is that we are
: > witnessing the first generation of kids who were raised without the
: > arts in their schools.
: >
: > The fad for cutting the arts from schools has appeared to have
: > caught up with us in a very destructive trend of killings and suicides
: > as a release of frustration. Cutting of the arts has become a grave
: > and destructive mistake and our youth are paying for it in many
: > ways and even with their lives.
: >
: > It is important for people to understand that when the arts were
: > removed from schools that what was removed was a venue for
: > understanding differences. When they cut the music programs they
: > removed a venue for developing achievement. When they removed
: > the dance and drawing classes they removed a mode of
: > communication that consistently allowed the arts to give a venue
: > and a way to support differences in everyone and allowed an
: > avenue for improvement of self esteem for young people.
: >
: > The arts are of great importance to the cultural fabric of developed
: > countries and as we see a decline of the arts we see a decline of the
: > culture in total. Just like the romans verses the greeks in art
: > history. Today the demise of the arts can be translated to what we
: > are experiencing in the shootings of young people like in America
: > or suicides of youth in Japan. It is important that the arts be
: > employed at very heightened levels in our societies and cultures in
: > order to seek improvement and healing of the individual.
: >
: > Heightened attention to coursework in the arts in schools around
: > America and elsewhere will allow people to understantd
: > themselves, will allow them to grow, develop, heal and improve in
: > areas where science and sports do not reach. Heightened support
: > of the arts will allow young people and communities to reach into
: > their souls, it will give them places to succeed in ways they would
: > never have tapped without the christening of a mural, without the
: > applause after performance. The arts allows the ability for kids to
: > dance at the sea and feel comfortable in simply expressing joys or
: > sorrows in forms that words cannot.
: >
: > Just like the columbine in a series of paintings as a mark in time, the
: > ability to express feelings in ways that connect us without words
: > has geat value. The arts ability to empower thought that can
: > inspire others can build self esteem through symbolism and
: > symbolism is a powerful tool for leadership. This type of thinking
: > and communicating is learned through the arts.
: >
: > By requiring the arts in the neighborhoods and in your childrens
: > lives you will be giving these kids a place to create, a place to grow
: > strong, a place to vent, a place to understand themselves, a place
: > to understand each other and a place to celebrate differences. By
: > allowing the arts in schools you will at the same time be allowing
: > the kids to develop key and important differences in themselves
: > that can also aid the development of strong self images and their
: > ability to understand the differences in others.
: >
: > As it appears today, your kids lives quite well may depend on it. It
: > is important to demand that freedom of expression and arts
: > programs be added back into the National Education programming
: > for American kids and teens.
: >
: > As I think back to my school years in a place just like Columbine
: > High School I can still remember the first and last names of jocs
: > who picked on the nerds. I remember as an artist at that school
: > how I hated seeing people treat each other that way.
: >
: > I can remember how happy I was that my family valued creativity
: > enough to let me mature in mine as a place to escape and develop
: > on my own. I can remember that they allowed me to use the arts to
: > become an individual that valued my own differences and used
: > them as strengths to value other differences and strenghts for me
: > to succeed. I remember thinking how sorry I felt for the kids whos
: > parents did not allow the arts or did not value the arts they seemed
: > to have been missing so much.
: >
: > Today, I wonder if all those kids at Columbine High might have
: > developed better images of themselves and their peers had they
: > been cultivated more each in their own creativity and freedom of
: > expression through the arts? I wonder had they had more
: > opportunities in the arts in their early years that they might have
: > understood differences of others and learned to be more tolerant of
: > those differences? I wonder had they had more exposure to the arts
: > and various dimensions of differences might they still be alive
: > today?
: >
: > Artists know how understanding artwork adds to understanding
: > self. Artists know that through understanding you learn to accept
: > cultural differences by being different yourself. Artists learn that by
: > being different you are ok and you learn to tolerate more in
: > yourselves and in others. Artists learn all this through the arts and
: > artists bring much to the world through diverse thought and
: > questioning and sharing of ideas. All the things those parents at
: > columbine wish now that they could have shared with their kids to
: > understand what was really going on behind that tradgey but it is
: > now to late to ask.
: >
: > The columbine blossom is now added to the 'Flower Power' series.
: > That series of paintings was concieved from a poetic dimension of
: > life which included personal and global tradgies, leadership,
: > moments, color, love and a positive wish for the future.
: >
: > I think we would all agree that is what 'Flower Power' is about. I
: > think we would all agree that the columbine belongs in that flower
: > series as a symboic reminder that we all need to address the
: > symbolism of the flower power meanings through the arts. I think
: > we all need to pray that it is not to late to reach a generation of
: > kids. I think we need to recognize that the arts can teach the kids
: > that peace, love and creativity are important values that can be
: > cultivated through differences and revered in ourselves and others
: > throught the arts and we can teach them through the arts that care
: > matters.
: >
: > Mattison Fitzgerald
: > Artist
: > http://www.rhinodevcom/M
: > matt...@att.net
: "Get out of my way!"
: cro...@hotmail.com
alf sauve
Even just a year ago I would have ignored your posting. Not that I
disagreed with it but that I wouldn't have understood it. Now, not due to
the school shootings, but due to my renewed, mid-life, interest in
performing arts, the value of art is so very clear and obvious to me. Oscar
Brockett said it in his book, "The Essential Theatre", and it just jumped
out at me. (Screamed even.)
"Art is valuable for its capacity to improve the quality of life--by bring
us pleasure, by sharpening our perceptions, by increasing our sensitivity to
others and our surroundings, by reminding us that moral and societal
concerns should take precedence over materialistic goals. ......Perhaps most
important, in a world given increasingly to violence and tensions among
ethnic and other diverse groups, the value of being able to understand and
feel for others as human beings cannot be overestimated, because violence
depends on dehumanizing others so that we no longer think of their hopes,
aims, and sufferings but threat them as object to be manipulated or on whom
to vent our frustrations."
Oscar was of course concentrating on the theatre but how clearly I see it's
principles apply to all art forms.
I have been a supporter and champion for more fine art programs in my local
high school for 9 years now.
One of the "rallying" points for art has been our high school's spring
musical. I've championed for not only the drama department but for all
fine art discplines to participate. While, some departments have been slow
to respond, (the art deparment looks down on painting sets as a lowly form
of art and journalism department thinks the same of preparing posters,
borchures and programs) we are gradually winning more and more converts to
supporting the muscial program. Even the athlettic department gets involved
at times!
Thanks for the posting. (btw, you left out a period in you web site URL
just before the 'com'.)
Alf
free lance, actor, director, producer, musician.
Mattison wrote in message ...
Basil72
You need to come to Denver. Here, public art is "art for art's sake" and, as
such, inspires little more than a yawn.