To do a thing artfully is to do it with attention or purpose that extends beyond the ordinary; to do a thing artfully is to do it with care. I believe that the role of art education in today’s public school curriculum is to provide students with a model for a type of excellence that cannot be achieved through test-taking strategies or rote memorization. The practice of the professional artist has always involved a keen awareness of the models and methods of art creation that have come before, often with an eye toward advancing the practices or aesthetics of his/her particular medium(s). But the methodology for achieving success as an artist or with a particular artwork has never been a strictly linear or, even, entirely logical operation. There are many, many paths to great artistic achievement and every great artist must ultimately find their own way. As art educators we must provide students with the groundwork on which to construct their individual paths; we must make efforts to familiarize them with models of excellence culled from art history and we must help them understand the tools through which that success was achieved. But because art cannot be defined as one type of activity, or even any grouping or list of activities, we must be ready to extend our practice beyond the precedents of art history and follow our students as they find the mediums to which they have decided to focus their care and attention.
