What we now accept as creative authentic art is vastly different from the traditional fare accepted only decades ago. Technology allows us to capture and manipulate almost any desired visual or audio effect. No strand in the Arts seems 'pure' anymore. Nor does anything seem sacred - think of the sexiness of Anime. However through out the ages all art styles and media had the potential for being put to good use or bad. The role of the Arts Educator is to guide, mediate and encourage students to be discerning. Teachers are challenged to create projects that have the potential to stimulate and stretch the student's creativity and originality of response. Animation provides a smorgasbord that will enable the student to approach projects with inventive exploration.
Art Teachers want to instill a love of all things artistic into the hearts of their students. Animation is a versatile medium within which story can combine dance, dramatic enactment, poetry, stage and set design. Music sets the scene for drawings paintings and all things digital such as Claymation to come to life and speak in ways that at times realistic enactment cannot. Because of the ease and affordability of digital manipulation a teacher can not only show very good examples of how art fits together but teach the students how to combine these elements themselves. This gives the students the opportunity to be active creators rather than consumers of technological art in all forms of multi-media.
Animation has a poor reputation within the Fine Art World.
"Plots? We never bothered with plots. They were just a series of gags strung together. And not very funny, I'm afraid." - Dick Huemer, 1957 Article Online by Patrick James.
"Today, animation in Japan is considered to be in a creative doldrums. Due to the sheer volume of the output over the past three decades, the good ideas have "all been used up."" Fred Patten.
However for Arts Education the availability of animation as a teaching medium is a Godsend. Through this media the teacher can bring together all of the strands of the Arts in an easy and affordable manner. For the results to be motivating teachers will address
The quality of the work produced and the way the media is used remains as a matter of taste and discretion for the Arts Faculties that provide them.
