Chapter I. THE GOOD ART PROGRAM


WHAT IS ART ALL ABOUT?


To the person who is unfamiliar with the art experience, art is nature imitated and repro-
duced in some material.



 For this reason many have come to judge art by how nearly it
 resembles something with which they are familiar. In their thinking,
 art is a mirror reflecting nature and yet they would not think of music
 as a record of sounds found in the street or in the barnyard. Copying
 nature or anything else will never result in art.


 Art is a reflection-a reflection of man's beliefs, thoughts and
 feelings. It is a visual way of saying something through a sensuous
 material so that it can be experienced by others or re-experienced
 by the one who created it. There is always more in art than we can
 see with our physical eye. It is more than painting and sculpture
 to be looked at but not understood, as is often the case when museums
 and galleries are visited. Too often this experience leaves us with
 the concept that art is limited to queer studios, art schools, and
 European cities.


 Actually art in most civilizations, including our own, enters into
 our sensitive choices, decisions, and performances found in every aspect
 of daily living. It is involved in buying a hat or a shirt, arranging
 a table setting, and planning a window box for flowers. Endeavors
 such as those of the Early American weavers and cabinet makers;
 the American Indian shaping his pottery and weaving his blankets;
 the ancestral carvings of the South Sea Island natives seeking pro-
 tection through wooden sculpture; the painting and sculpture done
 for the Renaissance church and the medieval weapons and armor
 reveal evidence that art may serve in many ways to enrich and expand
 human endeavor and living. But copying the above examples will
 not enrich our own lives. Our problems and needs are different and
 demand from us different solutions.