Typically when the image of an artist is conjured, cluttered arrays of studios and apron-clad people hunched over painstakingly perfect paintings come to mind. After practically living in a studio for most of my college experience, I attest to how the clutter and paintings are a common version of what an artist can be.
However, I caution this framework to be the instant image of what we consider artists. There is a reason why stereotypes are universally known as problematic- due to the fact that they box certain populations in and others out.
With schools increasingly shutting out funding for classes focused on the arts, we must consider how that came to be and how this stereotype comes into play. If we say all students are artists, does that cause the arts to lose value? Students are not typically called scientists or philosophers for that matter, so why do we commonly foster the term artists in the art classroom? Perhaps the term can be used, but only once these factors are discussed and reflected upon.
Are students limited when given the title artist, or is the title of artist limited in itself?
What is Wrong and Right: Preconceived Notions of Artist
Would you consider yourself an artist? If I were to pose this question to my group of 21-year-old friends, with scrunched up, repulsed expressions, they would immediately deflect the question with a resounding no. Finding this response troubling, I will casually invite them to draw or paint with me next time I am splayed out on our apartment floor. As an art education student, I fall into this routine regularly. Every time they hesitantly join, I observe a vibrant transformation in their attitude towards their ability in the arts.
Discomfort and uncertainty control their movements at the start. An internal struggle ensues, comparing the page before them to others in the room and the picturesque works of great artists in the back of their minds. Nevertheless, I create alongside them, discuss with them about their drawings, and brainstorm unique ways to push what they make further.
Through this, I reveal how I have no intention of informing them the work they produce is wrong for the preconceived reasons for what “wrong” artwork is. They transfigure from withdrawn to wonderfully invested. Witnessing this has led me to one conclusion. What is holding art students back is this idea of wrongness and rightness, with rightness what we typically align with as an artist.
Two problems ensue from these preconceived notions. One, the scope of the arts and an artist is reduced to black and white limitations: this art is bad, this art is good. In reality, art is a fluid, explorative practice. If arts are diminished to only technical standards and stagnant outcomes, the endless possibilities of what students can create are ceased.
In addition, it leads students that are less confident in their artistic abilities to decide that their future professions are unrelated to the arts (this is simply not true) and that art is a separate entity from themselves. Both of these issues, if sustained with limiting art lessons that revolve around standards (line, shape, texture, etc), can result in students forsaking their creative potential.
Educator Janet Taylor points this out in her The Art of Education article, declaring how arts education especially during the pandemic has taken a backseat in schools’ curriculum by adorning the title of enrichment ("Why Arts Advocacy"). Taylor observes this as meaning, “there were no expectations for students to complete or even engage in this work."
These enrichment art lessons she indicates are the cookie-cutter and surface-level sort. Teachers make a pretty landscape scene out of pre-cut paper, indicating to students step by step how to recreate that same image. Even adults do it, with Wine n’ Sip sessions gaining popularity amidst community centers. Rows of identical paintings that will later be shoved at the back of closets, only to be dug out once in a blue moon. Remember that one time I was an artist?
Therefore, enrichment indicates non-necessary. Art accompanied by this term is given the same priority of cleaning your windows; doing it would make things look nice, but you will always have more pressing issues at hand.
Indeed, when teachers are negligent to art’s interdisciplinary, problem-solving, and collaborative possibilities, the arts can easily fall into this enrichment category. Yet, when teachers choose to keep these factors in mind, to create reflective, community-building lessons, faculty and students alike will come to appreciate the vast connections that art produces. Once art teachers can implement this understanding, students will recognize themselves as artists beyond the commonly known “artistic” technical use of the term.
Reconstructing Artist
This brings us once again to consider what the term artist means. A redefinition of the term artist should be cast apart from the preconceived notions. Artist should be a liberating title, given to all students who make rid of what they consider wrong or right artwork. It should function as an encouragement to move past the doubts that people will already have when addressing the artwork they create, and as a symbolizer to the creative capabilities that all possess.
One may say that endorsing the term artist for every student will devalue the work they produce. Art is already struggling to stay on course agendas, why decry the field by labeling everyone as an artist? Is it essentially dwindling it down to the likes of everyone is special (and smart, and kind…)?
Educator Amber Kane raises this concern in her article How Does Calling Students Artists Impact Growth Mindset? where she argues, "as a culture, we tend to look at artists as though they were simply born with the talent, ignoring the effort they’ve put into their work. When we call students artists, we’re praising talent, not process” (“How Does Calling”).
She holds artist as a title that students should define for themselves over the course of hard work and practice. Truly, this is exactly what an artist must do in order to be notably accomplished in the arts. Students should also self-reflect and construct their identities based on their experiences.
However, this theory aligns with the definition of the artist as a skillfully trained art-maker, rather than a risk-taking, inventive, and reflective practitioner with the arts in connection to the world around them. As students become more aware of their artistic abilities during adolescence, as reflected in my friend group, they are self-conscious of their technical capabilities. They will come to define themselves as an artist or not on their own, based on the existing preconceptions.
Therefore, art teachers must withstand the responsibility to encourage and boost the artistic confidence of students who do not immediately self-define as artists. By establishing connections to coursework and community with the arts, students who self-identify from other passions, such as scientists or philosophers, can be given the opportunity to explore those fields further in a different framework.
Artist Beyond the Art Classroom
A student interested in physics can identify the intersections between art and science by throwing pots in ceramics, or an engineering student can effectively communicate their ideas by illustrating on photoshop. Overall, students can choose to self-identify based on various roles.
In consequence, art teachers must compel students to recognize how these interests intersect with art practice (because every student is capable to create). Interdisciplinary art exploration can lead students who would otherwise be dormant in their creative interests to generate new connections between themselves and the community workforce they choose to pursue.
So, consider once again, are you an artist?
In this way, every student and every person is an artist. Selecting a few chosen, technically advanced to bear this title inhibits every other person from excelling within the arts in their own right. We are all trying to make changes and discoveries with the uniquely creative attributes we possess.
The talents you have in drawing an apple accurately cannot hold you back from that ultimate purpose. Nor does this reflect how much of an impact you can make with the creative attributes you already possess. It is up to you, as an inventive and reflective individual, as an artist, to fearlessly explore what those capabilities can bring to fruition.
Works Cited
Kane, Amber. “How Does Calling Students Artists Impact Growth Mindset?” The Art of Education University, 28 Aug. 2018,
Taylor, Janet. “Why Arts Advocacy Is Needed Now More Than Ever.” The Art of Education University, 8 June 2020,
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