Deborah Haynes' book, Art Lessons, was a pretty interesting read for me, at least in the first few chapters that I've read. She had a lot of interesting viewpoints and ideas, some that I could easily relate to and some that I was not sure about. The first thing that stuck out to me, in the Preface was that as a young child she was very interesting in the world around her and she questioned pretty big things. I could relate to her love of clouds, because I am pretty fascinated by clouds and the sky, and it is usually the first thing I notice when I go outdoors. I thought it was interesting that she searched for answers to questions about theology, because I believe that those beliefs should be sought out by us as human beings and that we should not remain ignorant of what views there are in the world.
In Chapter One Haynes talked about what it means to be an artist. I liked the theory that Jospeh Beuys came up with, that everyone can be an artist. I think that there are some people born with artistic gifts but becoming an artist is made out of your intention, your creative action, and your imagination. I think I have always taken my artistic talents for granted, but it wasn't until I was about seventeen or eighteen that I realized I wanted to become an artist (before deciding this I had planned on majoring in English). At the end of the chapter she mentioned that the most important thing in art is to think about what you are doing, and she believes in using your body, soul, mind, and spirit. I believe that these are what make up a person, and they are all a part of who we are and how we live our lives.
In the next chapter, Haynes talked about aesthetic education, which had five main points. She said we need to learn how to write, have a relationship to sustaining tradition and culture, recieve training and learn skills, know contemporary cultural theory and the issues today, and think about the question of the audience in our art. I liked this chapter and thought it brought up a few really good points. I really can respect the author, to me she seemed to be very aware of the world around her, and she was open to a lot of things. I think it is extremely important as an artist to not be egotistical, and to have the ability to know about the world around you. I think history is a huge part of who we are as humans, and really without it we would not have anything to define ourselves. In this chapter she asked where you got the idea that you wanted to be an artist. This was a hard question for me to answer. I think in the back of my mind I've always loved art the most out of everything, but I didn't realize I could focus on this until probably last year. I think my interest stemmed from my love of reading as a child and the artwork that was included in these books. And lastly I just agreed with the author that we need to be citizens of the world, and take in everything around us; analyzing history, the present, and the future, in order to become a knowledgeable artist.
