Whats a good way to give poor talented kids a chance to explore and see and know and learn the arts???
A library card.
Fascism with a penchant for the arts. Force the children to appreciate it.
cans of spray paint
-Imp
PG - I have more sympathy, even as he is being facetious, with Imp’s answer than with your question. I think the question of talent should be left aside. Just fund their schools enough so their class size is something under forty students, and pay for some art teachers. Talent sorts itself out later.
I have seen, by the way, some graffiti that was every bit as good as stuff I have seen in galleries and museums. The spray paint isn’t a bad idea - it’s just a matter of where the canvas is. Many retaining walls along urban highways would be much improved by some good graffiti. The problem appears to be a philosophical one - if we allow the graffiti, then the artist doesn’t want to paint. It’s the outlaw quality of the art that seems to be the attraction. We do not seem to be, most often, clever enough to get around this psychology.
As always, Imp cuts to the chase and is dead on.
I have a vested interest in this and have strong feelings about the arts. Actually, I have a degree in art and art history - and am a musician and piano teacher by day. Anyhoo… this is a good question.
Faust is right about funding schools but the problem is deeper because the first thing poor schools cut is in the arts. This makes me nuts because it takes a lot of different types to make the world run, not just math and science people. Some of us should be designing the chairs not just making them. Because the schools are not going to change any time soon, I think that individual teachers and associations in the arts should take their personal part and responsibility in sharing their knowledge with underprivledged kids. I do this. There are a third of my students that I don’t charge anything and I buy them a keyboard to get them started. It takes a village - and the bureaucratic bullshit may not be enough. Sounds good on paper, but all artists need to support the arts even if it is just one child at a time.
Actually, Bessy, the arts aren’t always the first to go - sometimes athletics is. In a country of such wealth, either is a stupidity.
I rarely see this. It is usually the arts. Wanna fight? 
I have seen this often. Locally, there is a town that wants to charge kids to play sports. This surely precludes poor kids. The arts program remains intact.
I do agree that artists, and other private entities should and do support the arts. But there is no excuse for american schools not to educate in the arts. And there is no excuse to exclude graffiti from our urban landscape. Except that it frightens white people.
Sometimes being white embarrasses me. 
Remember breaker tags? You don’t see them as much anymore. There was one such artist in my hometown, reputedly female, who did really cool ones. I wonder if she went on with her talent. Encouragement in school might surely have helped.
I remember also two girls painted flowers all over a large concrete Industrial Park sign, in my home town as well. It was beautiful, and remained for some months. So many people liked it, that eventuially the girls had to brag, and were found out. They were given community service, which I found a bit ironic, since some of us thought that their crime was just that.
Meh, who cares about athletics 
Well, there is a difference between bad graffiti and graffiti art?
I was raised in the arts. Duh. My husband was not. I have seen more good attributes given to my children in sports than any one single thing up and including anything close to painting or music lessons.
Self esteem
Working with people.
Learning that life is about losing not just about winning.
A strong healthy body.
Lifelong love of watching sports.
Making friends.
Staying off drugs.
Shall I go on?
Bessy, the benefits are well-documented. And the list of its benefits is long, indeed. I never played any school sports, but that is not the point. Some kids wouldn’t even finish school if not for sports. Some kids play organised sports long after public school, and it is a major factor in their lives. There’s no reason not to educate in an area so important to so many.
Of course, I also think they should teach kids how to balance a checkbook (which I never attempt, not because I can’t, but because I won’t), some basic cooking, and other “everyday” skills.
Once, my brother-in-law was a judge in a teen pageant. Their “talent” segment was limited to 90 seconds. Half of them submitted tapes that were a minute and fifty seconds. They had timed themselves using a microwave oven.
Think about it.
PG - Bad grafitti is what some mooks see when they see any graffiti at all. Or graffiti that just sucks, anyway. Some purported art sucks. But I won’t get into some dead-end aesthetics discussion over it.
Nope - not biting on that one, young lady.
And you’re not kidding me. Not about art or school athletics or Brittany Spears or anything else, for the record.
that reminds me of this: banksy.co.uk/menu.html
i shouldn’t post it because it was this website where i originally found the link, but it happens to be related.
I didn’t play sports back in the 60’s. I hung out at a bowling alley with *hoods, smoking cigarettes, drinking and playing bad rock and roll on our even worse instruments - in a badass band. LOL
And parenting. We ALL do that on the seat of our ass. How 'bout how to maintain a longterm relationship without murder, invest money, change a tire, run a house, pay bills, maintain good credit, buy a house or a car, and the most important of all - how to tip when you order your take out.
I have never balanced a checkbook in my life either.
*Raise your hand if you have ever heard of “hoods?” Okay, tent is home for the night - [size=75]that bugger.[/size]
yeah, hoods are like those guys in the sharks that danced around and played with switchblades…
-Imp
Yes, Bessy. All of those things should be taught in Lifeskills 101. Ideally, some of those would be taught a home. Often, they are not.
I have heard of hoods. Did you wear a baracuda? Plain side or plaid side?
omg - sometimes it is just downright fun being old. Was that an East Coast thing? I am from Philadelphia.
Yes, siatd… but these hoods were musicians not criminal types. We did dance in the street to music with great choreography - high kicks and step-ball-change in tight black pants comes to mind. 
I’m serious - I was duty bound to take English, Maths, Science, P.E. and at least one foreign language until I was 16 (when I could have left school). Why not art? All mandatory education is dictated by the state (i.e. by the parts of the state apparatus governed by the teaching union). Why not add art into the mix? And remove maths and science, obviously, but you know what I’m like…