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01-05-06
By Mark Floyd, 541-737-0788
Source: Henry Sayre, 541-322-3103
BEND, Ore. - Art education in Oregon public schools has declined precipitously over the past two decades, a victim in most school districts of budget cuts. Henry Sayre would like to see it rebound.
A noted art historian at Oregon State University's Cascades Campus in Bend, Sayre wrote a book called "Cave Paintings to Picasso: The Inside Scoop on 50 Art Masterpieces" aimed at school children in an effort, he says, to help rekindle interest in the arts. This fall, he was honored with an Oregon Book Award, winning the Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children's Literature.
"I had a hard time selling it to publishers," admitted Sayre, who carries the title of distinguished professor of art at OSU. "They thought it was too sophisticated of an idea for younger kids. But I know from experience that kids have an interest in art and they can do remarkable things with it. It is something I feel quite strongly about."
Chronicle Books in San Francisco eventually agreed to publish "Cave Paintings to Picasso" in 2004, and the book has done well in both sales and reviews. It is being reprinted in a Korean edition, and now several other international versions are on the horizon.
"Art is incredibly important and it pains me to have watched its presence in Oregon classrooms decline over the last 20 or so years," Sayre said. "It used to be that almost every school had an art teacher and every kid had art instruction. Then, as budgets got tight, the teachers got eliminated, and districts hired a traveling art teacher to spend a half-day at 20 different schools every two weeks. And even that has begun to disappear.
"Unfortunately, art is seen as decorative instead of fundamental."
Sayre disagrees - vehemently - that art has no place in modern classrooms, pointing to studies that show students who attend art class on a regular basis do better in other subjects, as well. Retention rates are higher. And art often appeals to kids who may struggle with other subjects.
It also has strong curricular value, Sayre insists.
"Art presents kids with critical thinking opportunities unlike anything else out there," he pointed out. "I'm not talking about the kind of art that is left in schools today - cutting out Thanksgiving turkeys and painting them. Think instead about drawing a building in the right perspective. Art teaches geometry and algebra, history, observation, and most of all, coping with failure.
"With art, there's always failure," he added with a laugh. "But it's correctable failure."
The images Sayre chose for his book are varied, ranging from classics like da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Michelangelo's "David" to King Tut's sarcophagus, the statues of Easter Island, and Bayeux tapestry. One of children's favorites, he said, is an illustration of a painting from Lascaux Cave in France - because it was discovered by kids.
Another favorite: the Campbell's soup can, by Andy Warhol. "A recognizable image," Sayre said.
"But they like things you wouldn't expect. One of the most popular is Magritte's 'Son of Man', which nearly every kid thinks is spectacular. You just never know."
The images in "Cave Paintings to Picasso" are presented in chronological order and include vignettes about the authors or the works. Art history, Sayre points out, teaches children interpretive skills in a way few other subjects can.
"I'm not talking just about a picture, but all of the layers beneath it," he said. "If you bring in a copy of a da Vinci painting, 5th-graders get that it was introduced in the 15th century. They can see the weird perspective of Giotto. They marvel at 'Woman from Brassempouy', which is the earliest known representation of a human face - and just over an inch tall.
"Best of all, they do all these things while having fun."
Sayre, who has been with OSU since 1983, has won numerous awards for teaching and service, has served as president of the OSU Faculty Senate, and as an administrator with the OSU-Cascades Campus in Bend. He is perhaps best known for his art appreciation text, "A World of Art," and for his production of a multimedia teaching package for art appreciation. The latter project, funded by a $1.2 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, includes a 10-part television series that aired on PBS in 1997.
Now Sayre's focus is on continuing his efforts to rekindle interest in art education for students in elementary and secondary schools. He is planning a follow-up to "Cave Paintings" that introduces another 50 masterpieces. And he is continuing to visit classrooms, and push for more and better art instruction.
"I remember being asked to come into a class for very young kids and talk about Monet," Sayre said. "What do you say to a 5-year-old about Monet? But we started talking about color and I pointed out the window to Mary's Peak and asked them what color it was. A young boy answered 'green,' because he was thinking trees. But actually, it was tinted blue and for the first time, they started looked at the real colors, not what they thought they'd see.
"That's what art does for kids. It makes them stop and examine things critically in a way they've never done before. That's a pretty valuable trait to casually throw out with the bathwater of budget cuts."
About the OSU-Cascades Campus: Located in Bend, the OSU-Cascades Campus is the Oregon University's System's first branch campus. A part of Oregon State University, OSU-Cascades features small class sizes and one-on-one mentoring by world-class faculty.