In making a case for liberal arts education, Sanford Pinsker, a professor emeritus at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, recently denounced the stereotype that art-educated people are flighty, unambitious and destined for unemployment.
About the current economic crisis, he warns that “those who put their stock in big apartments, fancy cars, and shiny diamonds have had many moments to ruminate about what is permanent and what can be passing.”
More substantial, according to him, are the sensibilities provided by a liberal arts education: critical thinking, adaptability and the perspective to acknowledge a lifetime of learning opportunities.
But I would go even further. To come out of this economic slump, even to avoid such crises in the future, not only do we need more art education, we need more artists.
Artists and creative-minded people don’t just think up ideas, they make them real. They have the inherent drive to shape reality according to their ideas. In other words: to create.
Real creativity, however, requires independence. And that’s why small, independent businesses, like Raw Sugar Café on Somerset Street, have become bastions of creativity in Ottawa.
The café’s small, unconventional library caught my attention, particularly because the recent discussions of art and culture focus on digital media.
Owner Nadia Kharyati says having a mini-library was always part of her plan since the café opened in November. She says it’s another way of engaging people because Raw Sugar doesn’t have Internet access
Just down the street, local musicians Pierre Richardson and Craig Proulx are also giving their creative ideas a physical form. They run a home-based music label called Bruised Tongue, focusing on Ottawa-based musicians. And their format of choice is the long-lost cassette tape.
Maybe it seems a bit odd: especially considering the currency of digital media (download codes are included with each tape purchase). Yet their argument is simple: tapes offer high-quality, analogue recording on a cheaper, easy-to-produce format.
Having released vinyl before, Richarson and Proulx say it’s cumbersome. Records have to be pressed at a special location so they have very little control over the process.
As a niche format, cassette tapes are hand-made on the cheap, but with plenty of care.
In fact, what really strikes me about both ventures is their prevailing sense of good faith. Raw Sugar’s library operates on the honour code. There’s a sign on one bookshelf that reads: “Please don’t steal the books. Many people kindly donated them for the public’s enjoyment.”
Meanwhile, Richardson and Proulx are genuinely excited about the local music scene. They want to share that excitement as quickly and cost-effectively as they can.
Kharyati feels a similar excitement from her café’s clientele. She says it’s really good to see a community forming around Raw Sugar and drawing inspiration from the space.
If art and creativity encourage these kinds of sensibilities, then more art is exactly what Ottawa needs. It’s this kind of non-conventional, innovative and, above-all, good-natured way of thinking that should drive the solutions to today’s problems.
Not to idealize art in general, but bottom-line profit-seeking has certainly not proven its worth in gold.
Maybe it’s because I write for a paper, but I am tempted to believe there is still a crucial place for physical art and media in Ottawa.
It’s the authenticity of something visible and tangible, a kind of cultural currency. For a place where political decisions are made, this exchange of ideas is of utmost importance.
Returning to Pinsker’s argument, he points towards “a willingness to pursue ideas” as being “essential to a democracy.” While Kharyati, Richardson and Proulx may not taut their ventures as pillars of democracy, I see a tendency here that deserves recognition.
To change the way things are, to make ideas real, we need to encourage our creative-minds and validate passions other than power and greed.