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You
are here: Arts Learning and the Creative Economy
by Jack Yantis
Beneath the daily wear of the world, the stresses and challenges of postmodern life, there is a vibrancy of possibility, of creative power moving through the universe. Humans over time have constructed diverse responses to this "trembling of creativity" through the arts, culture, business, government, science and technology, and spiritual work.
At the beginning of the 21st century, this power is emerging into a creative class. Paul Ray and Dr. Richard Florida have been tracking this unfolding since the early 90's. Ray called them, "Cultural Creatives" while Florida identifies them as the "Creative Class." Whatever the name, there are more people involved in creative work than ever before.
At the center of this group are people engaged in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment while around the edge are creative professionals in business and finance, law, health care and related fields[1]. These people value creativity, individuality, difference and merit.
The ethos merging from this group recognizes that creativity is essential to the way we live and work today, that it is multifaceted and multidimensional, and that the tension between creativity and organization needs to be changed. Organizations, especially large, bureaucratic ones, have human resources departments. These were created to provide ways of dealing with conflict, counseling and psychological support, training and education and other related topics that help the organization manage the stress of this creative/organizational tension.
From one-hour "pull-out" sessions and one-day retreats to seminars and courses at universities and colleges, the field of on thejob learning or professional development is discovering new ways to foster creativity while providing a structure in which to produce and manage work. Much money has been spent in the manufacturing and service economies to generate programs to improve the product and the process. They have included music and drama, poetry, community service, efficient accounting practices, and others. The purposes they served in the organization could support restructuring, retraining, writing the company song, celebrations, etc.
With the creative economy, how will professional development transform? What is needed to sustain creativity in balance with output? When you are in production, how can the creativity be supported and still meet milestones (the video game industry's term for deadlines?) How essential are creative play breaks to the organization? Does your organization have an "innovation infrastructure?"[2] Many of these questions can transform professional development from training to learning opportunities where the arts are used to construct more effective social networks, embody experiential understanding of artistry, explore problem-solving through integration of mind, body and spirit, and bring more calm to the intense business of the organization.
As an educator, choreographer/director, and teaching artist, I have always had a fascination with organizational design, policy development and effective group processes. Creating dances became a metaphor for exploring the diverse ways people work in groups. Through years of reading, attending conferences and participating in several organizations, I have come to see myself more as an artist who is a process mediator rather than an artifact creator. By this, I mean I approach my work with groups as a facilitator, a side-coach, a catalyst for change, a creator of an environment that encourages risk-taking, self-directed learning, opportunities for dialog and one where movement plays a vital role.
Professional development for the creative economy is one that embeds "arts learning" into the organization's "innovation infrastructure" along with brain-compatible, self-managed, team-driven, collaborations that draw upon the benefits of intrinsic motivation for shaping projects that sustain the creative vision of the organization. "Arts learning" can help dissolve the line between play and work, the line that often gets adults into systemic difficulties.
At the 2002 Symposium on "Art, Artists and Learning" sponsored by Bennington College and the J. Paul Getty Trust, the participants generated five components of "arts learning" - 1) making, 2) attending, 3) creative problem-solving and making, 4) taking responsibility, and 5) experiencing [3]. These components are related to Eisner's definition of artistry, "artistry consists in having an ideas worth expressing, the imaginative ability needed to conceive of how, the technical skills needed to work effectively with some material, and the sensibilities needed to make the delicate adjustments that will give the forms the moving qualities that the best of them possess."[4]
In considering these components of arts learning, there emerges a link between the arts and sustainability, a root with new science and chaos theory, and the transformation from assembly-line models of production applied to creative organizations to "hologram-based" where the project team reflects the whole of the creative process. Creative businesses nurture this capacity for dissolving the line of production into the circle of creativity and then reestablishing it when needed. Product and process are melded into a creative flow that encourages free competition and open collaboration.
The British Council defines the Creative Industry as "Those industries that have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property[5]." They have established thirteen sectors of creative endeavor including advertising, design, film and video, interactive leisure software, publishing, and others.
As necessary as this "innovation infrastructure" is for businesses in the creative economy, it is also necessary to bring arts learning into our schools. What is needed in our educational system is an "arts-learning" curriculum that reflects a process of nurturing the creative capacities in every learner by cooperating, communicating and collaborating across all disciplines. Our educational system could release itself from the remnants of an organizational structure that serves old corporate ideas of education, the "let's fit them into the cog" world view, by moving to a more flexible, structure-seeking learning environment that supports the arts learning necessary to participate in the Creative Age.
Arts learning helps us move from the pedagogical model of teacher-as-expert to the pedagogy of "making" where the classroom has the feel of a studio doing original, beautiful work; where the learner is engaged in a collective process that asks them to take an increasing responsibility for what is happening. Classrooms that connect art and technology into cooperative projects with others are environments where arts learning is already happening.
Here in the United States, a recent report from the Computer Science and Telecommunication Board, National Research Council entitled Beyond Productivity: Information, Technology, Innovation, and Creativity, noted the powerful alliance being formed between information technology and creative practices in the arts and design, (ITCP). IT has reached a state of maturity, cost-effectiveness, and diffusion that enables its effective engagement with many areas of the arts and design—not just to enhance productivity or to allow more efficient distribution, but to open up new creative possibilities[6].
Arts organizations, artists and K-12 education need to take a closer look at what new technologies might represent - the shift from an economy based on the production, storage, and transfer of goods and services to one based on the production, storage, transfer and use of knowledge or information. What this shift promotes is, among other exciting possibilities, creativity in all its forms -- in the schools, in the workplace, and throughout the community.
The implications of having "arts learning"-based curriculum are enormous. We begin to dissolve the illusionary lines between work and play, and engage in life experiences that spring forth from the interconnection of all beings. We begin to sustain the power of creativity and devote more energy and effort to "better recipes rather than more cooking." As a result, the organizations, communities, countries, and the world with which we interact will become a healthy, creative, inclusive environment for all living beings.
The Creative Class and the Cultural Creatives are the norm-setters for the 21st century. Through careful integration of artists into the structure of organizations including our schools and businesses, the mediation of positive, healthy, functional processes at all levels of the global economy -- manufacturing, service and creative -- will become as significant as the artifacts created. This can provide great hope for all of us.
References
1 Florida, Richard. (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class, NY: Basic Books, p. 8.
3 Center for Cultural Policy. (2002) A report on Art, Artists and Teaching, http://www.culturalpolicy.org/pdf/ArtEd.pdf As viewed on June 9, 2004.
4 Eisner, Elliot W. (2002) The Arts and the Creative of Mind, New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 81.
5 British Council: Arts Group. (1998) Arts, A Definition of Creative Industries, http://www2.britishcouncil.org/arts-creative-industries-definition.htm. As viewed on June 9, 2004.
6 Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB), (2003) Beyond Productivity: Information, Technology, Innovation, and Creativity, Washington, DC: National Academies Press, p. 2.
Web Sites for further exploration
Center for Arts and Culture, http://www.culturalpolicy.org
Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie-Mellon, http://www.etc.cmu.edu/index.html
International Game Developers Association, http://www.igda.org
Jack Yantis has been actively involved in the worlds of performance and education for the last 25 yrs. He holds an MFA from New York University. Currently he is Associate Faculty, Center for Programs in Education, Antioch University Seattle, where he teaches integrated arts courses in their Teacher Preparation programs. He has taught in K-12 private and public schools in Washington State, Georgia and South Carolina. He is also a choreographer and director who has worked for several dance companies and community theatres and even still manages to dance himself. For more detailed information about Jack and his work in the world, go to www.jackyantis.com or email jmoving@mindspring.com.
©June 2004 New Horizons for Learning
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