One Hundred Mile Diet and Local Art
by Marilyn Schick
The rural region’s rich legacy:
Over the past six years I’ve enjoyed developing and providing art programs to rural high school students through a variety of venues in local communities. It all got started through an after school art club that I was asked to set up for students who otherwise had no opportunities for art making. Those who joined, almost without exception, identified with another art maker in their families, usually a grandmother. The value of this identification became very clear in that it motivated the participants to gain competence in the use of art making materials and expressive ideas. The other thing that grew increasingly clear was that their community possessed a rich legacy in visual arts.
This legacy of art making, however, faces real challenges if it is to continue:
We all know how modernization has caused the demise of small family farms, their former business centres and service communities. Small towns threaten to disappear due to work opportunities and shopping in other communities within commuting distance.
Rural school populations are low compared to urban counterparts, and finite educational budgets dictate that teaching staff, meted out according to school enrolment, are too few to offer a full range of arts programming. The survival of communities and schoolsrequires cooperation and teamwork along with robustness of body and soul. When limited programming poses the choice between physical education or art making, sports takes precedence. Art making then falls by the wayside. As one school principal explained, “ It becomes the responsibility of those teachers who can be talked into giving art classes but don’t have training in art education, so there’s no real art program.”
Teachers are aware of the need for art making and they do their best to give students opportunities to do so. But because of scheduling issues, heavy workloads and limited resources, art making decreases as grade levels rise.
Regional schools take advantage of Artist in Schools instructors who enrich theschool year, but these special guests imply that art making is a treat rather than an
essential part of life.
There are a few who argue that when art making is removed from their curriculum, the loss of pleasure and developmental benefits for students can be replaced by other activities. I believe this argument is exactly true. A disposition for art and its making ‘can’ be replaced and forgotten! Such forgetting begins in the brains and nervous systems of adolescents when unused neuro pathways defer to more commonly used ones. The outcome in the instance of neglected art making is a physiological inhibition that is noteasily reinstated and often mourned later by individuals. When this happens to an entire generation of young people, a rich legacy can be lost forever, which in turn can changethe fabric and course of an entire community.
The potential end of a legacy of art making is happening alongside the pitfalls of rural urbanization in which young people have lost deep connection with nature. They no longer live within walking distances to school; instead, they’re bused for up to two hours a day. They no longer eat what is grown and produced at home; instead, food is transported from specialized farms and factories all across the world. In other words, they no longer grow up directly connecting to and integrating with the regional geography and seasons that have shaped their history. Many have argued that this worrisome trend of mechanization, and disconnection from the land and its seasons, is proving economically and environmentally unsustainable. This critique has given momentum to the 100 mile diet.
Geographic integration, local art and leadership:
There is great capacity in art making for integrating deep understanding of a chosen subject matter and medium. Perhaps classroom teachers, art makers and program developers can borrow from the 100-mile trend towards localization and, in turn, apply it to other integrative processes. To this end I was encouraged recently when I proposed to a high school teacher that I drive his students to a suitable landscape for our next art class. “Or perhaps we can hike about the community for a place to set up our easels”. He answered, “I prefer that we don’t get in a car, or even walk about the community looking for a scene to paint. I want my students to see their landscape just outside their classroom door.” His wish articulates that he recognizes the value of his immediate geography, and is committed to sustaining a relationship to it for future generations.