Ralph Pearson's Design Workshop was a center of progressive art education in New York. However, based on the correspondence courses that he developed, he was able to reach artists and art educators across the United States. Women artists and art educators dominated his courses and went on to play an important role in spreading progressive art…

As I began my first year of graduate school--admittedly, a shaky start of my own--a group of my former students began to struggle with their transition to high school. Upon hearing this from my friend, colleague, and their current theatre teacher (who I will call Ms. M), I developed a workshop curriculum focused upon health for the artist to…

While it is sometimes claimed that abstract art requires little skill and is indistinguishable from the scribbles of young children, recent research has shown that even adults with no training in art can distinguish works by abstract expressionists from superficially similar works by children and even elephants, monkeys, and apes (Hawley-Dolan…

Can art be a sport? Gabriel Lacktman describes the thrill of graffiti. He notes the average artist seeks refuge in the blanket of self-expression, successfully avoiding all disconcerting competition. However, in the 1990s, Lacktman's interest in graffiti became a lifestyle, the theme was all about "the art of getting over" or "the…

The tension among the different models for understanding the relation between the artist and the artwork is brought most explosively to light when legal battles erupt between artists and institutions. This can be found in both the "Tilted Arc" controversy of the 1980s and in a recent dispute involving the Swiss installation artist…

As co-headmaster of Boston Arts Academy, the author tells the stories of two students whose passion and talent in the arts helped them become more successful in academic subjects. Boston Arts Academy accepts students on the basis of auditions, regardless of their previous academic or discipline records. Yet a large majority of its students go on…

This article provides a space to explore, through artistic representations and the words of artists themselves, the manner in which politically engaged artists use their visual art, poetry, music, dance, and theatre performances as an effective tool for public pedagogy. In turn, these artists provide those who enter into their cultural production…

This article is a brief synopsis of a much longer report, "Teaching Artists and the Future of Education: A Report on the Teaching Artist Research Project," which is available in full at http://www.norc.org. The Project, for which I was the principal investigator, was a three-year investigation of the world of teaching artists in a dozen…

This article places youth spoken word (YSW) poetry programming within the larger framework of arts education. Drawing primarily on transcripts of interviews with teen poets and adult teaching artists and program administrators, the article identifies specific benefits that participants ascribe to youth spoken word, including the development of…

Founded in 1966, and premised on the idea that motivated sixteen-year-olds are capable of college work, Bard College at Simon's Rock is an educational "experiment" from the sixties that has endured and prospered. "Educating Outside the Lines" looks at Simon's Rock as a pioneer of the early college movement that has begun to…

Boston Common at Twilight illustrates that despite the urbanization of late-nineteenth-century Boston, one can still find a sense of peace and serenity there. This article describes Frederick Childe Hassam's painting, "Boston Common at Twilight." It highlights notable cultural, historical, and artistic elements in the painting and…

This article presents contributions from teaching artists about Teaching Artist professional development across the country in theater programs and through museum programs. In the process, the authors have come to realize how much they still have to learn about what is available (how badly they need a funded research project to inventory the state…

This report examines arts participation in the ten largest metropolitan areas in the United States using data from the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. These data indicate that, in general, these metropolitan regions tend to be more alike than different with respect to arts participation patterns. Analysis reveals that while…

This report examines arts engagement in ten key states in the U.S. by analyzing data from the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). It is organized into ten state profiles that summarize key demographic characteristics, the arts landscape, and public participation in the arts. Because the regions profiled here are not a random…

When visitors enter the offices of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, they are often taken by the art on display. The collection is striking and vibrant. Like all good art, each piece makes a statement--sometimes quietly, but boldly. When foundation staff proudly tell guests that the exhibit was created by Boston high school students, the…