Recreational vs academic art educators

Evening. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1863

The art of handling university students is to make oneself appear, and this almost ostentatiously, to be treating them as adults, while keeping them in invisible harness and even, when necessary, giving them a flick of the whip. -- Arnold J. Toynbee (Experiences, 1969)

I took part in a discussion today about the qualifications required for teaching art and the subject of recreational versus academic art arose. Perhaps the wording should have been more in terms of professional versus recreational art. There are recreational artists who draw for pleasure and never receive payment or commissions, but how did they learn to draw? And are they able to articulate how to reproduce a drawing of an image using traditional drawing theories or simply create, not quite knowing how they get to the point of creation?

Then comes the discussion of self taught or academic art? Is one more valuable than the other? Or are they simply 'different'? I know that many artists are self taught and produce amazing work through years of practice and study in one form or another and some of these go on to pass on their skills to others. I believe that traditional methods of producing art are essential and recreational artists possess these methods. They just don't know that they do because they've often learned through self discovery, not academic studies. And I know academically trained artists who also produce beautiful work but who cannot teach for beans. The opposite is also true of both of the above groups.

Some recreational artists, buoyed on by success, get bound up in the appealing notion of teaching art and then suddenly find themselves in over their heads. They are often not aware of the time commitment it takes, the hours of class preparation, critiquing sensitive egos without bruising them, encouraging, leading, guiding and giving students the wings to fly, not to become a clone of another artist.

It is quite different to create a simple image for pleasure when your critic is family or well meaning friends than to have students looking to you for guidance with expectation of success every step of the way. Style or drawing/paintings produced are not indicative of a teacher's ability. They are simply a product of his or her imagination and learned techniques. A teacher's ability to translate what art theory and experience is in their mind into a learnable, enjoyable format is the recipe for success. Pareto's rule seems to apply in this case too. 20% of teachers are good and 80% mediocre.