VI 10 (2) pp. 249–251 Intellect Limited 2021 Visual Inquiry: Learning & Teaching Art Volume 10 Number 2 www.intellectbooks.com 249 © 2021 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. https://doi.org/10.1386/vi_00045_1 Received 2 March 2021; Accepted 2 April 2021 JAMES HAYWOOD ROLLING JR Syracuse University Rethinking artistic method ABSTRACT For your purposes as an art educator, how do you define ‘art’ and ‘artist’? Some critics argue that, in today’s art world, the ‘institutional’ definition of art reigns. What other definitions of art seem credible and useful to you as an art educator? I define myself as a creativity educator, drawing upon the nature of both the artistic method and the scientific method as human ‘making’ practices at their most fundamental – making meaningful sense of all we are and all we know. Meaning is what makes sense. In other words, meaning is a contraption for the conveyance of sense, a mobile transport structure for some idea or script or value pertaining to persons, places or things that constitute a key element of the overall identity of the meaning-maker. What is meant is conveyed as ‘a text, or a text-analogue, which in some way is confused, incomplete, cloudy, seem- ingly contradictory – in one way or another, unclear’ (Taylor 1976: 153); meaning therefore requires an interpretation if sense is to be made of it, and as such is ever subject to reinterpretation. The vehicle of conveyance may be as compli- cated as a novel, as embodied as a choreographed dance, or as simple as a crayon scribble. The interpretation or reinterpretation requires only an audience. According to Richard Purtill, ‘From its origins, science has tried to give a simple and unified account of the world’ (Purtill 1970: 304). Here is it help- ful to note Brent Wilson’s definition of research ‘as re-search, to search again, to take a closer second look [...] [which] implies finding evidence about the way things were in the past, how they are presently, and even about how they might be in the future’ (Wilson 1997: 1, original emphasis). Research invites reinterpretation. Second and third looks are a common occurrence, inviting KEYWORDS social justice conversations art education history visual culture politics curriculum