Dowie on Art and School

John Dowie’s new book, Before I Go, is out today.

I’ve already quoted from him here and here, but there are two more Escapological (and, to me, relatable) Dowie nuggets in my notebook:

The only people who advise people not to be artists are people who have never been artists. It is as if they are so deep in a rut of their own choosing that they can’t see over the sides.

It’s true. When you’re a child everyone seems to say, “you can be anything you want to be.” But then, in my case, there was trouble when my best school subjects turned out to be English and Drama. Becoming an actor or a writer was of the question, the stuff of fantasy.

The school careers advisor and every other adult I asked was dead against it. “Actors spend a lot of time resting,” my dad said, inadvertently making it sound brilliant. “Drama is a hobby,” said my deputy head teacher when I bumped into him coming out of the dentist one day. But that was life in the Midlands in the 1990s for you. It’s probably different today. Right?

There’s no reason not to become an artist if that’s what you’re good at and if it’s what you enjoy. There are perfectly legitimate career paths in the arts. And even when there aren’t, just find a way to do it anyway.

The purpose of school is not to teach children kindness, or the love of animals or how to play together nicely. The purpose of school is to teach children how to make money (almost always for somebody else).

It doesn’t matter what interests the child may have. If they don’t lead to making money then they have no value.

And that was the rub. My school and the other adults in the Midlands of the ’90s just couldn’t see how money could be made for other people — that is, the employment model, perhaps inspired by the mythical trickle-down economics — using art. You had to become a factory worker or get a job in a bank or the council or something.

Even when I accepted the reserve fate of librarianship, it was met with scepticism. Books, you know. Books. Books look suspiciously unprofitable for other people.

Anyway, Dowie’s book is marvellous and it’s out now. Go get it, you first-class scamps. In print. In digital.