I’ve just been grazing through a book of David Hockney’s drawings from the late 1960’s early 1970’s. They were shockingly familiar because I had bought the first Hockney book – a significant expense and my first major art book purchase. What was strange was how looking back on these old 1970’s drawings of Mo, Celia, Ossie, Peter I recalled how, as a young student, I saw them as being older and part of a golden generation. This book was small and the reproductions modest. But for a second I was once again an awed young man looking at the art of the new. I was surprised that these simple drawings still held that fresh appeal for me after 55 years.
This morning the UK government issued a press release setting out a blueprint to turbocharge AI. This appears to herald a dramatic change to the approach adopted by the previous administration. The earlier approach was measured and gave equal emphasis to dangers and safeguarding concerns while accepting the advantages. The government now declares the intention to ensure the UK takes a leading role in advancing the development and adoption of artificial intelligence globally.
“Artificial intelligence will be unleashed across the UK to deliver a decade of national renewal, under a new plan announced today (13 January 2025). In a marked move from the previous government’s approach, the Prime Minister is throwing the full weight of Whitehall behind this industry by agreeing to take forward all 50 recommendations set out by Matt Clifford in his game-changing AI Opportunities Action Plan.”
AI Opportunities Action Plan January 2025
This will take some time to achieve because it depends on structural as well as intellectual and attitudinal change. However, this represents a sea change in the approach to AI and will affect and embrace education. It is too soon to see how this will affect the AI sections of this site – but it will.
Click here to see the 50 recommendations that have been accepted by the government.
Used my iPad app to work up this page of drawings for a family of spoons. These were based on the first bog oak spoon I made last week. I did make a very small one from a chip of wood but I tested it to destruction and it broke. I think these bog oak spoons will need to be quite loosely carved as the surface appears to show its age.
Really cold but this is a very interesting beach with all sorts of debris and trees that have fallen from the cliffs. (Note to self) Must come here in the summer with a larger sketchbook and charcoal.
I’ve been working on various projects and have found that AI has made life easier. It has been useful in providing outlines, summaries, lists, commonly accepted explanations, more comprehensive descriptions and presentation of information than my old memory can muster unaided.
I have put these experments into a small Canva site so that I can share the ideas with friends.
I’m doing some work writing about a new art curriculum in Saudi Arabia and at the same time reflecting on the implications of the publication of a new Ofsted Research Paper about UK art education. The paper is rather impenetrable and probably not fit for purpose as a consequence – because teachers, and me, can’t easily understand it. But it states that it is now for teachers to make choices and decide upon the curriculum that they feel is best for their students. Until fairly recently these matters were laid down in the UK National Curriculum for Art. That teachers have a choice is a good thing, but it is quite a few decades since these matters of educational philosophy were discussed in many school art rooms.
For me it has meant going back and rummaging in old archives, dusty hard drives and rereading once familiar old books about educational philosophies. One by Maurice Barrett was the first book about Art Education I had read and which inspired me for much of my career. He was writing in 1979 about the choices that teachers could make as they developed their curriculum. (Art Education: A Strategy for Course Design) It was subsequently rather subsumed by the National Curriculum orthodoxy that followed. But today it once more has a relevance as art teachers are again being required to make choices and justify them.
In the middle of this reflection and revision of theories I found myself sitting by the fire with my granddaughter. I was working on a spoon and she crocheting a bikini top. Both of us untaught in these media and both making a similar, shallow concave shape – just intuitively using our fingers to feel and tease the shape into existence.
A few days earlier I had been reading about, and discussing with an old friend, concepts of ‘powerful knowledge‘ . I was uncomfortable with the notion of having to refer to everything as some sort of ‘knowledge’ as the Ofsted report suggests. I think what Erin and I were doing was some sort of sensate response to materials and the qualities of form, shape and texture: possibly function as well. I don’t know if there is a metaphor for curriculum purpose and content in art here. But it seemed a curious and unusual alignment of ideas and questions about making, skills and purposes in art education.
A poster advertising some of my ‘dibbers’ at the Bohemia Walled Garden sale in Hastings. Sales were modest. But it was an Easter egg event and I had given away the better ones. So it’s not surprising.
I think these should be called ‘interesting bits of wood that could be used as dibbers’. So far I’ve done 17. I have found some old seasoned branches on the marshes which carve well and have a really good colour when treated with oil. So these will keep me going for a while. Ostensibly I’m making them to be sold to raise money for a charity, but actually it’s just enjoyable whittling.
I tried to explain what a dibber is used for, but my granddaughter would have nothing of that. They were obviously wands for magic and she wanted one. But she was quite adamant that she didn’t want any of the curvy bits. She was so concerned that I would be tempted to add some discreet ‘curvy bits’ that she drew me a picture of the design and the pattern. So much for my artistic pretensions.
The magic dibber, I mean wandA quick design by Lara to make sure I got it right
My professional life has been devoted to art education, and I had set up a website and blog for art teachers even before Bucks County Council (my employer as art adviser at the time) had a website of it’s own.
Occasionally it is interesting to share stuff with old and new friends and colleagues. So this website is just an opportunity to gather a few creative and professional strands together in one place. It’s an old habit, a scrapbook, or perhaps a sketchbook.
Dan China
PS Recently I have been working with others, exploring the potential of AI in art education. This is why there is a section here on AI which gathers that work together for now.
