Originally published in a-n Magazine as July-August 2010 Debate

In a recent presentation to peers, tutors and her Goldsmiths degree show audiences, Sarah Rowles asks: Does art education come with a key to understanding art and making more informed judgments about art?

Art cannot be taught and any teacher who thinks they can teach it is going to be a bad teacher. A good teacher is one who thinks of himself or herself not as a teacher at all but simply as an artist. Likewise a good student is one who doesn't see himself or herself as a student but again as an artist. All there is and all there can ever be between art teacher and art student is a conversation - an informal and spontaneous exchange of ideas, knowledge and experience - and this is quite enough.

Drawing from the Artists talking blogs (an.co.uk/artists_talking) this article will examine the many positive benefits of keeping an artist’s blog.

The Government has announced new money to help creatives keep the high street alive. Shouldn’t we be queuing up to get in there? No way, argues Fiona Flynn

Nobody likes boarded up shops. And like every other art student in the land, I’m always on the look-out for places to show the work I’ve made and am excited about.

So why did my heart sink at the announcement by Communities secretary Hazel Blears to help artists and community groups take over vacant shops and keep the high street alive?

Humour has long since been used as a way of avoiding direct responsibility, whether it be escaping from the normal world into the absurd or criticising social systems from within without fearing repercussion. By using humour we can reveal the hidden structures of the ordered world that we live in. Even the simplest jokes tear holes in our language or social structure, rendering them momentarily absurd. It is this shift between reality and unreality that creates humour, which enables us to escape from our role of responsibility in our normal ordered world. Through using humour we are able to address topics that may otherwise be deemed taboo, it opens up a wider discourse to important topics whilst not making direct challenges.

Prologue – St. Mattheus Passion Sets the Tone

My my… how you’ve changed… those misshapen eyes, those tear-stained mouths, I barely recognized you. You seem to lack structure, lustre, life in general. Out of focus again… “Kommt, ihr tochter, helft mir klagen”, I cried.

Part I – S.O.S

“Save our somethings”, I heard him cry out from the depths below. “And what exactly do you expect me to do about it?” I hollered back at no one in particular before returning to my lunch which had been expertly laid out in technicolour reams of red and gold. “More rump blubber please”, I gestured at the waiter out of the corner of my mouth. I ate, paid, quickly masturbated into a jar and left the establishment.