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IS NOT PROMOTED AS MUCH AS IT ONCE WAS Richard Embrey
ART IN SCHOOLS
Unfortunately, over the past decade, Art in Schools is not promoted as much as it once was and in favour of more traditional subjects. With a 40% decline over the last 10-15 years of pupils taking Art at GCSE and a 25% drop in Art Teachers.
I believe that this is a mistake, as so much of science, technology and business relies on creative people and art and design. So if a lot fewer people at School are only learning, practicing and developing these skills to about the age of 14, rather than 16/18, then we are missing out on a large area that drives innovation in this country.
We also have a lot less students doing art based and creative degrees, of which numbers are down 57% over the last decade. Art History alone is down 28%. Some of this is due to students preferring more business related degrees, as job prospects are currently higher, in a difficult graduate job market where unemployment is high. This is understandable and why I chose Economics rather than art at University, but to subsequently regret it many years later.
But becoming a full time professional artist is hard and very few make it. Also in the modern digital world there is less need for professions such as Illustrators, actual physical Graphic Designers, rather than on a computer screen and Cartoonists. I wanted to be a
Graphic Designer of record sleeves, book covers and the like; but these days it is more about just the Font and the Colour scheme, than a great design. The same I feel is true with Interior Design, where too many new cafes, restaurants and even Bars are just different applications of safe browns, whites and greys; even some top Michelin star places. Where the source design seems to be an airport lounge crossed with a hospital and a school canteen!
It used to be just Museum cafes and the like, but it seems to be a trend now and the new National Portrait Gallery restaurant, that has just opened, is just like that. One of the most important organisations in the art world and it looks no better than the inside of a fast food restaurant. To find a nice unique place to eat and drink is proving harder these days and the environment is so important.
More so than I realised, until I recently saw a podcast with Marco Pierre White who listed the most important aspects of a restaurant as 1. Environment, 2. Service, 3, Food and Drink and 4, Price. I agree with him as the room and atmosphere is the first thing I look for in a pub or restaurant and if it’s a sea of white and beige, the food had better be brilliant! So who is designing these places and for who?
Is it that they have such homogenous products, trying to be all things to all people, that they don’t care about the environments
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