give art a chance
by simcha weinstein

It seems more apparent than ever that we are not establishing the right breeding ground for developing leaders who understand peace.

Perhaps the largest problem facing the world community right now (and certainly the case in our country) is conflict. We do not seem to understand peace. I guess this is not that surprising considering what little effort actually goes into teaching peace. Conflict, on the other hand, is taught on a regular basis, and we teach it with great pride.

It begins very early in life. Our school system spends a good bit of time, for example, teaching the history of American conflict. In our culture, by the time you have graduated from high school, you have studied seven wars (from the Revolutionary War to the Gulf War) and now we have an eighth and ninth war to add to the books. Our children are learning about conflict. Most don’t even learn why these wars were fought in the first place. Ask any adult what World War II was about and chances are they really don’t know. Sure, everyone remembers Pearl Harbor, but that wasn’t what the war itself was about. Understanding our cultural and national heritage is important, but how we present this information to our children is critical.

If we want peace, we need to change the way we educate both children and adults. Our schools regularly discuss and explore war, and yet art and music are rapidly vanishing from the curriculum. This is without question the largest mistake we are making in the education of our children. The absence of art is the absence of peace! Creating art is about understanding harmony. Where there is harmony, there is always peace. Every time someone picks up a brush, a pencil, or a crayon and begins to draw, they are tapping into the harmony of the shapes and colors that they see—every artist inherently knows this in their soul. When musicians pick up a flute and begin to play, they are hearing the harmony of sounds and transforming that harmony into chords of exquisite music. If we take this a step further, Peacemakers are also artists, for they too understand harmony. The Peacemakers understand the harmony between countries, between cultures and between people. Harmony is the key to peace, and yet we seem to be eliminating the teaching and practice of harmony from all conventional learning centers. Where are the current Mother Theresas, Mahatma Ghandis or Martin Luther Kings? If our leaders are truly concerned with protecting the American people, then they must learn to accomplish this by becoming peacemakers, not by proclaiming war.In American politics the halls of Washington, DC are filled with lawyers. By trade, lawyers are bred to understand and engage in conflict - that is what litigation is all about. Lawyers argue for a living. This is not intended to be lawyer-bashing, but this basic fact cannot be disputed. Our leaders and law makers are trained for conflict, and they excel when they are in such situations. It would stand to reason that our leaders prefer conflict as it naturally allows them to excel. There is, however, a way out of this misguided paradigm - TEACH ART!

What I propose is that at least once a week in the Congress, Senate and White House, a day is set aside for all of our elected officials to participate in some form of art for the day. No “politics” are practiced on this day. Perhaps they draw, paint, write poetry or play an instrument, but they must engage in “practicing harmony”. I’m confident that John Lennon wouldn’t mind if we took a little liberty with his words and proclaimed “all we are saying is give art a chance.”

People will inherently seek harmony. The irony is that in our culture we are actually taught to pursue conflict. We must be reminded of what is naturally inside of us all. Children always say it best as Howard Ikamoto reminds us: “when my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college- that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?”

Simcha Weinstein is the founder of ColorWorks Studio in Asheville, NC - a fine art printmaking studio servicing artists and photographers throughout Western North Carolina and the Southeastern United States.
[ 828-298-7776; simchaw@charter.net ]