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The Native Tourist
reformed/biblical observations on Christianity and culture

Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Thinking about Art Education
The article on the Aristides Atelier from Seattle's alternative newspaper The Stranger is very intreguing. A throwback to earlier times when artists learned their craft from a master in a workshop. This method was expecially in place during the Dutch Golden Age. Its hard to say exactly how much the Atelier really mimics the guild/workshop model or the Academy model which is slightly different. But both are hugely different from the way most colleges/universities train artists - which is based on the training methods of the Bauhaus.

One thing is clear: we need to really think through how we train Christian artists. What we have today at Christian Colleges essentially copies/baptizes what is happening at the secular institutions. Embedded in this system are an array of assumptions about the role of the artist, the nature of art, and, ultimately, the nature of truth and education.

Maybe someday I will have the time to think through this stuff, talk it over with some other Christian artists and come up with some sort of white paper or something.