Why your little angel’s paintings could change the world

From Britain’s most celebrated sculptor, who gave us the Angel of the North, a heartfelt plea . . .

MY ART teacher was passionate about sharpness. He could sharpen pencils to needlepoint thinness and great length, teaching us how to hold them and ‘draw from the shoulder’.

At the studio in his house, he could often be found standing deep in elm woodchips, wielding a heavy mallet over razor- sharp carving chisels.

His name was John Bunting. A gifted artist himself who had studied under the great sculptor Henry Moore’s tutor, Leon Underwood, he knew how to inspire and motivate children to discover their own artistic talents.

Those afternoons of silent concentration in John’s drawing classes have lodged in my memory: shafts of sunlight and no sound, save that of graphite on paper.

We would sit on our ‘horses’ — low benches with a slot for a T-bar that would support our drawing boards — and John, in his sensible brogues and corduroy trousers, would pace around behind us, occasionally coming to sit and teach by example. I can see to this day a little demonstration drawing he did in the margin of my page, rendered with a sensitivity of pressure, but absolute control, all from the shoulder, sitting with a straight back.

Later, John would be there at the sink, cleaning out the foil trays that we used as palettes for the paint. He did resent having to clear up after us, but he did it — and the occasion provided an opportunity to talk to him, amid the clattering of the trays.

My art teacher opened a door for me that has never closed. It’s so important that the door stays open for today’s pupils.

You may have heard of the EBacc. It’s a set of subjects the government wants 90 per cent of students aged 14 and over to study by 2025: English, maths, the sciences, geography, history and languages.

A school’s place on the league tables will be determined solely by the performance of its pupils in these topics. Creative, artistic and technical subjects will no longer count.

Inevitably, this has already led to their dramatic decline — between 2010 and 2017, the number of hours the arts were taught in secondary schools fell by 21 per cent.

Design and technology teaching has been hit even more badly, with the total hours of teaching down by 36 per cent.

ALL the signs are that this trend is not slowing. The arts are being constantly diminished. This is a catastrophe for an entire generation of children. All schools should have a space where pupils can do whatever inspires them: a place where there are enough colours, clay, tables and space, a place of possibility amid all the other classrooms with more defined sets of rules, subjects and facts. The art room is where I found energy, truth and myself.

For the government to insist on literacy and numeracy over creativity implies that the only choice for our graduates will be to fit into an ever-shrinking number of jobs in the service industry. That’s very unwise, especially now. It won’t help Britain to reassert our independence of mind to the wider world. The creative industries already contribute more to the British economy than oil, gas, life sciences, automotive and aeronautics combined. To devalue them in our schools is madness.

We want a nation of makers, of doers, of job makers, not job seekers, who, through dreaming and being able to communicate their dreams, can transform the world. I deeply regret the identification of Britain as a ‘post-industrial society’, a country where manufacturing belongs to the past.

We have always made things, putting our minds to work by shaping things that make life better. That might be a chair to rest the body or a picture to delight the mind. Whatever form it takes, making is a form of thinking and interpreting the world. It is also essential at any time in one’s life — but perhaps especially in those formative teenage years — to be recognised for something unique. For those who, like me, found writing more of a barrier than a bridge, the pursuit of making and drawing was another way to do something good, to do something that could be valued.

I recently made a film for the BBC called How Art Began and, during a few weeks of exploration, I learnt how our early ancestors lived between the Ice Ages.

These small bands of humans, living in circumstances so different from our own, without central heating or proper shelter, used drawing to communicate their values and excitement about life and the world that they shared with other creatures.

It was absolutely clear art was a fundamental part of their lives.

What making that programme taught me was that art is as intrinsic as breathing, walking or talking.

We are now better equipped in terms of tools of understanding than ever before. our phones, the secondary brains we carry close to our bodies 24 hours a day, have extended our arms and minds far beyond anything our ancestors could ever have dreamed of.

THIS ability to reassemble and to connect thoughts, ideas, objects and systems from disparate areas of human experience has never been more available and never more necessary. We need original thinkers whose mercurial minds are fostered in our schools’ workshops and art rooms. At a time when the whole of human history is available to the curious through these computers in our pockets, we have to radically reconsider what education is and how we encourage young people to develop the skills necessary to inspire and sustain a rich and rewarding life. give a child a sheet of paper and a pencil and ask them to draw their world and they have no difficulty: flowers, flying creatures, houses, forests, clouds, sky, earth and pathways . . . everything is available in the imagination; everything can be captured in pictures. This may be our first way of recognising the power of imagination, not simply to mirror the world, but also to transform it. That childlike enthusiasm for the symbolic language of images is something we discard at our peril. Writers say that you don’t know what you think until you write. I would say that you don’t know what you are seeing until you draw. The wonderful thing about drawing (or making anything) is that it doesn’t have to refer to anything that already exists. Drawing can be about pulling something up from the unconscious, from the farthest reach of your imagination, as much as from perception. We need to value the joys of original thinking. This includes using history as raw material for making a better, more integrated, more joyful, more creative human future, to evolve this fragile thing that we call life. At a time when the future looks so uncertain, when feelings about what the future holds are so fearful and fragile, the most useful and urgent activity of all is to teach young people how to imagine a better future and make it happen. only art can do this. our schools, teachers and government should all be reinforcing the message: ‘ You are a creator, you can change the world.’