Arts Are Important!

If it had not been for Ms. Simonds I don't know that I would be a successful, happily employed person. She was my high school art teacher. Until high school I could not justify to my family how important art was to me. They wanted me to be an athlete and have great report cards. I wanted to stay in my room and draw all the time. In high school Ms. Simonds connected me to Locust St. Neighborhood Art Classes, Inc. I had my own studio space and professional artists critiquing my work when I was 16. My senior year it was the artists that explained to my dad why a job at the pizzeria would not be as beneficial to me in the long run as taking classes and working in my studio 4 days a week. That is how I got my portfolio together and got into art school. I am living proof that art gives a child a voice, a sense of self, an identity, and can be a tool for teaching cultures, math, science, and history. If those connections that I made as a teenager had not taken place I doubt I would be working in the arts today. That idea truly scares me because there is nothing else I would rather do. Here are some great websites about the importance of arts education:
http://www.statenislandarts.org/artsineducation/whytitle.html
http://www.kinderart.com/artspeak/important.shtml