Why consider taking art? I mean, if I wanted to pursue a career in law, wouldn’t art be unnecessary? That shouldn’t be the reason preventing you from taking art courses. These classes, especially in high school, let you explore your own self, without really having to worry about the cost or how this will make money to pay debt. Art lets you explore yourself in a way one wouldn’t have been able to in core courses like math, English, or science. Employers are going to look at your life experience and other matters when judging whether to give you the job, not your high school courses.
“If only I had taken that course, maybe I would’ve had more excitement in high school.” Art courses are just that– a place where you can be yourself, and don’t have to be perfect.
“Why should I take art?” When I asked myself these questions, the first reason would be the extreme comfort I find in it. Not everyone is the same, but we all possess that potential of creativity. We just need the means to unleash it. Art classes allow you to do so according to your level. You can choose the color, the texture, and all those things in some of the activities, while in others you are forced into a situation where you have to follow set rules. These are different from other “series classes,” where you mostly do exactly what you’re told to.
In the book Joyful, by Ingrid Fetell Lee, she talks about different things that make humans happy. In one of her examples she mentions how color brings joy. She presents a town with high crime rate and one where you’d know it was omniius just by entering. One of its buildings was colored with bright color, and surprisingly the results were the people found the place much more safe and lively. Nothing really changed except the color of the town, yet it seemed to change the perspective they (townspeople) had on the place.
We might not notice, but each color and activity in our life matter and have an influence on us. When you’re holding the pencil, mixing the paint, or molding the clay, you’re connecting a different “self” to existence. It’s not really the same you who was doing math problems to reach one correct answer, nor is it the you who went off while writing an essay for english. It’s you who likes to create a mess, who turns that mess into something, and presents it with meaning that you found throughout the journey of its creation.
Art might not be for everything, but it is in everything. You can aim to be realistic with your art, or be as abstract as you can. Art isn’t meant to match specific criteria, and that is what art courses are trying to tell you. They are giving you the tools to hunt, so that you aren’t stuck hungry, clueless about what step to take next.
