A huge tip of the hat to The New School, The School Around Us, and the Kennebunk Free Library for featuring student art in its May exhibit. According to a public notice of the exhibit, both schools encourage their students to follow their passions through art because — and here let me paraphrase — such passion can often lead to the heart of their dreams. That these three organizations have come together on this underscores the importance of such expression and their organizational respect for the possibilities that draw students into the arts, whatever they may be: visual, literary or music.

At a time when so many schools are cutting back on such programs in favor of science and math, what we might call the hard academics, I fear we may be losing an important part of our future along the way. For ultimately, it is the power of the imagination unleashed — the individual dreams, the new ideas and the fresh perspectives — through which we may eventually find balance in our troubled and diminishing world.

And it’s just possible, too, that a paintbrush in the hand of a student turns out to be proper exercise for the dreams that will eventually discover such balance.

John Forssen
Kennebunk

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