There have been lots of articles over the last year or two about art in schools and as part of the National Curriculum for KS3 & beyond. The pressure is to reduce the amount of time that students spend on ‘soft’ subjects like the arts, so that they can spend more time on more serious subjects, such as physics or geography.  As a teacher, I understand that if you are judged on the marks in the serious subjects, you will automatically spend more time on these ones, but art should never be seen as a soft subject – and what is this about soft and not soft subjects anyway?

Art subjects – be that fine art, design, crafting, sewing, woodwork, cake decorating garden design, photography or any other variant – is good for the soul, it feeds the imagination part of our brain, and it also allows us to day dream, to escape into another plain where we can work through things that are bothering us. I’d like to think that blogging is an art form, and for those of you who regularly read my blogs, you know that it is a form of therapy for me, but so is gardening, sewing, jewellery and candle making. They all allow me to shut off from the pressures of the news, school, work and reports. I can think about anything, and while I am thinking about what seeds I might want to grow next year (did you know that you can grown quinoa in the UK – not planning to, but hey!) I then get a light bulb moment about the way to teach grammar to teens, or how I can tackle the sleeping problem we’re having with our youngest, or even what I can going to buy my grandmother for Christmas. Art is essential for our mental health.

Moreover, (and I think I may be plagiarising this from a Dan Brown book, so I acknowledge that now, but can’t actually cite it as I’m not sure which book), the higher you get in science and maths, the more artistic things become. There are patterns and rhythms to maths, there is beauty beyond words in the vastness of the cosmos, and the microscopic intricacies of the world too small for our eyes to see. And, perhaps most importantly, the sciences and maths need the arts. They need the imagination that sees beyond what is there and what we know. They need the mind that can wonder until it suddenly gets an idea that might change the world, and save mankind as it does. We cannot have advances in science without scientists who have imaginations to see what others cannot see yet.

Seeing art as a soft option goes beyond school. As most of you will know, I teach, and I am really enjoying being back in the classroom. I also did a science degree & masters, and see myself as a scientist, which is probably why I keep stopping myself throwing myself into my arty hobbies more. I love sewing, and am quite good at it (I made an amazing bridesmaid’s dress last year), and I also make jewellery, candles and am formulating lotions and potions at the moment. However, I cannot commit myself to these completely as my head still sees crafting as a non-science even though my lotions and potions, and, to a certain extent, candles, are a perfect symbiosis of science and art!

We all (me included) need to embrace all the difference subjects available to us as adults, and to our skware pegs. We need artists, scientist, mathematicians, geographers and historians, and we also need people who don’t see any barriers between the different areas, who can be artistic, mathematical geologists who can live happy, imaginative lives, while making amazing discoveries and inventions. And me? Well I need to relax, go into my garden and see where my mind will take me!