Art: the Adulting Skill You're Missing

What is Art?

What is art to you? They start teaching us to draw and color in schools as early as we’re two years old, but I’ve rarely seen any conversations in Indian schools or families about why art is even a subject.

Art is not a part of most families as a life skill.

Most kids consider it to be a pastime and most families would never encourage their kids to take it up even as a serious hobby (that is, if they believed their child to be smart enough to take up money-making professions.)

At its simplest, art is an expression, just like writing. It’s a way to easily communicate your ideas to the world and even better understand them yourself. Say you had a dream and wanted to show your friend what it looked like. Art simultaneously makes a picture in your mind very clear and brings the emotions associated with it. Basically, it's the fastest way to help others see your vision.

Why Study Art?

But why study art? Because unique ideas are rare. It’s not easy to make others understand your thoughts, especially if they’re unique. And to communicate your ideas, you need as many mediums as you can get. Art helps you to communicate anything from a building you want to build to a vibe you’re trying to create for your business to a product you’d like to get investment for. The use cases are endless.

And if you never had unique ideas? Well, we'll get to that too.

Art Education is a Failure

Our schools mostly focus on the technique and not the ideas. And that’s why it seems silly to take art class because you don’t see the point of perfecting your technique if you’re not going to be a professional artist. So why do teachers focus so much on technique? It could be because they themselves have rarely had unique ideas enough to need to explain it to others. Or maybe schools, by design, stifle your creativity and unique thinking.

While my art classes mostly focused on copying art from the book, all it taught us was to redraw others' expression. But I was really happy to see in movies that American kids were at least creating imaginative art, like drawing their families. I feel that copying is the worst type of art education, because it forever makes you dependent on others’ ideas, which is the opposite of unique thinking.

If you look at it this way, it'll change your opinion of many art pieces - you may start to view memes as a serious art form, or even start thinking of really good art pieces as average.

Taare Zameen Par - How to Judge Good Art

Bollywood movie Taare Zameen Par focuses on dyslexic child Ishaan who is constantly bullied by kids and teachers alike for being a "bad student" and is even discouraged by his parents. Art is his only way of expressing, which he soon loses to all the discouragement and hopelessness he feels. The movie ends with how he finds his expression again, through an art competition, which is a tie between his encouraging art teacher's painting and his own. Aamir Khan who plays the teacher, and Ishaan, both paint their hopes and dreams.

Aamir Khan's painting is Ishaan heartily laughing, which as a good teacher, he really hopes to see. Since he's never seen Ishaan actually happy, this painting signifies his success as a teacher - his greatest dream. Ishaan's painting is more introspective. It shows him sitting by the lake, watching fish at dusk - his favorite pastime, with a dream-like magic about it. He's showing the magic he feels. As a misunderstood kid, his greatest dream could be to show to the world how he sees it. But then again, his greatest dream could simply be to understand for himself the magic of watching fish. Both are valid.

Aamir Khan's painting, way more professional looking and well-done than Ishaan's, loses the competition. Was Ishaan's a better painting? I guess yes! My interpretation is that he's communicating a unique idea very well, which without the art would be impossible for others to see. That's the power of art.

Art Makes You Smarter, Like Coding

Most kids and adults alike dismiss art thinking it's for kids or a girly pastime or a "non-serious" hobby/profession. But it's for anyone. Anyone who's ever been happy or sad and who needed to find something better than words to say it. It's even for anyone who's never felt a thing and wants to feel something. Art helps you express your ideas, and the first step is to think them. But that's not all. It also gives the space and time to think of your next idea. It's reflective and improves your focus. In this way, it makes you smarter.

Since unique thoughts are very complex, you have to think of the best possible ways to communicate them, just like in coding - you have to break it down into its parts, in this case, subject, proportions, composition, color and white space. You can only do that if you've trained your brain to clearly understand your own ideas, and why they're unique, or even important enough to be discussed.

Since most people don't take art seriously, it's evident in the state of the world - most people simply think less unique ideas and don't know how to express them even if they do, and lack the patience needed to execute their dreams.

How to Approach Art as an Adult

So what’s the best way to approach art? I guess the first step is to think of it as a personal expression, not something to be showcased necessarily. By that I mean - just draw or paint in your free time without worrying about perfecting it, saving it or sharing it. And by all means, don't seek validation from others. Learn to give your own opinions first on why it works or doesn't.

I’m happy that I’m an artist but not a professional one, because it helps me teach art to my kids in a way that lets them express their ideas without obsessing over the “right way” or techniques. That's why my four-year old twins love art. My son loves to 'draw' rhymes and different facial expressions. My daughter constantly draws her dreams (a dream house, me and her on a unicorn, a dinosaur party with her friends) and recently even made a colorful card for Amazon delivery guys who've been delaying her toy car for weeks (seriously, deliver it already, guys).

Art is Your Medium for Feelings and Ideas

I feel the best way to approach art is to feel your feelings. Think about what it is that you really want to express today: it could be a dream, your way of seeing something commonplace or a hope or even despair. It could even be something to get out of your chest and keep for yourself. As it is, by definition, an expression.

Why this is so important is because everyone needs an expression and everyone needs a medium. That’s what makes us human. From cave people to rich to poor, everyone has that need. More importantly, such an activity can force you to get in touch with your feelings, because you’ll need to have unique thoughts before you express them.

It’s not that creative people can make good art, but that good art makes you creative. It’s the cheapest, most fun personal upgrade.

If you have kids, encourage them to copy less and think more. Help them master proportions and try to get them to talk about what they drew and why they chose that subject and composition. Encourage them to think about their choices more next time so it’s all deliberate and that will increase their clarity of thought.

I guess if there’s one takeaway, it’s this:

Art is really the art of thinking.

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