Art for all, all for art by Adrienne

Art for all, all for art by Adrienne - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

I always have and always will believe that emotions are infectious, for better or for worse, and that students subconsciously respond to and mirror their teacher’s emotions on a certain subject. A good teacher, a teacher that believes in and is interested in what they are teaching, is the teacher that changes lives. The greatest teachers are the ones that can’t stop talking about or learning about a subject and who firmly believe in its importance. If you are going to teach a class, it should be because you can’t envision yourself doing anything else. Teaching is an incredibly difficult job and one that brings with it a lot of responsibility. If I were to become a professor, which I would very much like to one day, I would teach about a subject I couldn’t not speak about. I would be a professor of art.
A class in art history is what really opened my eyes to all of the things that art was and could be and what truly made me embrace art as a part of who I was. This is not to say that I am an artist, far from it. I have struggled to draw a straight line for the vast majority of my time on this planet, and I weakly labeled my drawings for art class as “modern art” in an attempt to salvage them in some way. This is partly what motivates me to teach this class; people have a tendency to view artistic capability in a very narrow capacity rather than as a complex and multifaceted entity accessible to all. I for one devour art in all forms, from the designs and sets I create for theater to the movies I talk about for hours to the more “traditional” art housed in museums. I love art and all that it represents to people. It would be important to me to ensure that everyone got an equal opportunity to engage with the art world and to do it in an unexpected way, as I have.
The truly fascinating part of art is that it can never be fully understood. It exists separately to every person who looks on it, taking on new meaning for every viewer. The class I would teach would mirror the classes I had always loved best: discussion based, with no wrong answers. I would want to cover art in all of its myriad shapes and sizes, from the intricate jade work of Chinese dynasties to indie films of the last decade. Art in all of its forms is a beautiful and complex rendering of human experience. In my opinion, it is one of the most noble pursuits one could undertake. I hope that my class would be able to help others see the world as I do: as something lovely and worth exploring.