what one thing can you do tomorrow to encourage a young artist?
Why do we insist that young artists do something practical? Tomorrow, let's insist that they celebrate their creative spirit.
Did you know that tomorrow is "International Find a Way to Encourage a Young Artist" Day?
What one thing can you do tomorrow to encourage a young artist? Perhaps it is giving them some art supplies that they need–from your own stash or from an art store, or holding a crafting party for your kids and their friends, or simply drawing with a child, or taking a teenager to an art gallery or concert, or buying a copy of Peter Reynold's fantastically encouraging books, "Dot" and "Ish" for a child in your life or for a school classroom, or simply acknowledging how much joy a young person's art brings to you, or framing a piece of art from a child and hanging it proudly in your home, or making even a small donation to a teacher in a high poverty rural school who is hoping to engage her students in artistic processes…what else?
Let's do this.
IMAGINE how powerful if you committed to doing this – and if you told 10 people or 100 people and they committed to doing this. Let's rock the creative spirit tomorrow. Creative people will save us–we need them.
I return again and again to the recent speech by Karl Paulnack as he welcomed students to the Boston Conservatory:
“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do."
Here's a video to cheer you and spark some creative thinking as you ponder what one thing you will do tomorrow in celebration of the creative spirit! Enjoy!
