Visual Arts Education in Los Angeles

Re “Effects Firms Decry Lack of Arts Education,” Oct. 13:

I have been an art teacher for almost four decades and am proud to say I have not missed a single day of teaching since I started in February 1960. I am almost certain that if I remained another 10 years the battle would still be the same. During that time I have witnessed some of the least supportive politicians, community persons, school administrators and parents for a subject that has had to continually justify its mere existence, let alone dollars spent.

Eleven years ago the jewel in the crown of the City of the Angels was opened, the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts on the campus of Cal State L.A. The school appears to be one of the most closely guarded secrets in Los Angeles.

As the chairman of the visual arts department, we addressed your article some 10 years ago when the support for our little jewel was not forthcoming. We continued to see the decline of arts education in California in favor of “programs du jour,” the exporting of our talent pool, its teachers, administrators and ultimately our students, who refused to stop making art because the people in Sacramento thought it too much of a frill in the cur- riculum.

At the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, we employ some 50 teachers, all of them professional artists or designers; we teach 42 different classes. There is a balance between 2-D and 3-D design classes, between fine and graphic art and studio and lecture classes. In short, we are replacing the artists and designers so desperately needed by the economy and tax base of our state. Give us a few more years and there will be no need to import talent from any nation.

JOSEPH A. GATTO

LACHSA

Your reporter got it right. A society that neglects the arts does so at its own peril.

Creativity and discipline are at the heart of an arts education. They are talents useful in many areas even business, and in L.A., business means entertainment and the new media. That’s why Otis College of Art and Design is developing its own multimedia program to help meet the need for talent in the special effects industry.

So, to the parents of primary and secondary school children, help build an arts program in your school or call Otis to develop a fine arts workshop at your school. And, to parents of those students who want to draw, paint and create, remember, the leaders of the next millennium will be those who take risks and think independently.

NEIL HOFFMAN

President

Otis College of Art and Design

Los Angeles