STEAM as Acronym not Anachronism
Creativity often points out the direction of travel; for imagination is the precursor of discovery. Without imagination there would be no discovery, and without discovery no progress.
Installation Day for a 9ft, 6.5tonne sculpture on Tunstall Road, South Leeds
Commerce, industry and capitalism never created anything, the only thing it did was provide a bit of financial backing to advance the creativity of others, and use it to further its own ends. So, the idea of artists as the foot soldiers of gentrification, I think not! Artists as victims of the machine just like everyone else, that’s more like it! But how do we make a move against the ever lowering standards encroaching on our lives in a 21st century that is set to become as harsh for many as the 20th Century ever was.
Jacob’s Ladder sculpture on what is now ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park, Tunstall Road, South Leeds
Outside of creative practice most things already exist. They just await discovery. Creativity is the act of invention that paves the way for discovery. For if we can imagine that something is possible then chances are, it probably is. Ask a Victorian musician to imagine an MP3 player; a machine on which their music can be pulled from thin air and played back at random, or to imagine an NFT -an expensive artwork that does not exist at all in the physical world, and they would have you locked up in Bedlam. One hundred and fifty years later and these are no longer flights of fancy for which you could be accused of witchcraft or insanity. Instead a century and a half of frenzied creative progress has brought us to the point at which we now find ourselves.
Some real world crypto currency . . . more on this soon
But . . . for as much as the forces of creativity have accelerated the process of discovery, and provided the basis for all manner of technical innovations, artistic movements and creature comforts, it also has us impaled on the horns of a dilemma. For the world that was dreamed of in the fifties; one of flying cars, family holidays on mars, silver space suits and jet packs is nearly upon us, but it has simultaneously brought with it terrible consequences. Our grand visions of the future have come about due to the act of creative invention, and so too will the answers to the toughest of problems; for without creativity there would be no innovation.
Installation day for a Leeds Arts University 1st Year student exhibition at St Luke’s Cares Charity Shop, South Leeds
Recently the government put forth plans for education in a new white paper: these plans would effectively stymie the idea of art as a career path if you failed to get good grades in Maths, English and Science at GCSE. As a person who did very badly in my GCSE’s, back in 1988, art was my saving grace. Whilst my contribution to the world across fifty years has not been spectacular, I have achieved things that I would not have done had I not been to art college. Also, I think I can say that other people have benefitted from my art education, be it artists whose exhibitions I have produced or whose work I have taken to art fairs, biennials and other countries, or the public who have enjoyed the fruits of all of our labours. In the process though, I have barely made a penny. My salary is far from that of a graduate; the ultimate goal according to those whose ideas of high value degrees determine that our education must be in service to a world of continual growth and productivity.
Stone carving workshops at ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park - carve your own benches
Art college made me think differently about life; that for the blood, sweat and tears that working people must endure all the years of our lives, there is actually more to it than that. A sense of achievement is essential if the future is to seem worth having. Remove hope - remove the future. Many of our achievements are stolen from us by those who would seek to capitalise, without credit or remuneration, off the backs of working people. There is no cure for this, for the richest in our society are generally also the laziest. “You don’t make a million, you take a million” says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Absolutely!
If we gave up our jobs could we afford to live?
How free are we?
The answer to the first question provides us with the answer to the second.
So a question to ponder as I end this post: for what purpose are we educating our young people?
Bruce Davies | February 2023
Jacob’s Ladder with community carved benches at ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park
Come and have a go . . .
If you would like to try your hand at direct carving, come have some time with artists John Barber and Keith Ackerman SIGN UP HERE