The Art in Business

I just got back from our first artshow at our District office... It's not the first time we've hung art there, but usually it gets viewed by the administration and those few souls that come to the D.O. (as we teachers lovingly call it). Our new Fine Arts curriculum coordinator organized this event to coincide with the monthly VITAL (Vision in the Arts at Liverpool) meeting. It was packed with both Elementary and High School students and parents viewing their child's art and enjoying goodies. I presented my "Why Art?" video to the public. I have been working on this video for the last couple months. I used imovie and pretty much did it all by myself. I'm pretty proud of what I did. Everyone raved about it and I think the music people were pretty jealous (if I do say so myself). It was great. My vision was to promote the visual arts in High School targeting administration (who are clueless that art is a HUGE part of today's business world), middle school students, and parents. It's great for all levels. It shows artwork and images of our students working on art in the classrooms mixed in with quotes from business leaders and artists stressing why art is important in today's workforce. I think it got the point across. I wish I could post it here, but the file is WAY too big! I'm going to try to link it to my school's website and I'll post it if it works. If you go back to my first post ever, you will see my opinions on art in the business world. Any computer program, marketing strategy, or formula can be taught to older kids in a short time, but creativity and innovation must come from young minds that have a background and long term exposure to the arts in order to generate new ideas for retail, marketing, and sales fields. It's sad that most of our guidance counselors don't even know that kids have to have a fine arts portfolio in order to get into Architecture or Design schools. They are clueless... So, here's to our own "marketing strategy" and how the arts are important for ALL kids!