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Page 3.

being the wellspring of art - and art being the visual formulator of experience.

The substance of the foregoing thoughts hold valid and practical meaning for all youth, culturally privileged and culturally deprived alike. Theprivileged and deprived do not differ in basic art and human potentials. Their differences, in art at least, may derive from the fact that the deprived have been deprived of certain art experiences, exposures and learnings which the privileged have had. Also these deprivations are compounded by unjust social,. economic, ethnic, class, cultural, religious and educational attitudes and practices. These have tended to widen the gap between the privileged and deprived. (And because of this gap the privileged are deprived of such rich offerings that the so-called deprived may possess; it is reciprically unjust to both groups). If the gap is to be lessened, indeed closed, all facets of our social and cultural facets and, in the light of cultural deprivation, art is not isolated but is affected by all the other aspects of our society which beset the deprived. However, we attack the problem on all fronts and our front, in this instance, is art.

In the art process (or in the process of creating art) we see all youth, privileged or deprived, as possessing varying degrees of inherent creative potentials. All youth can formulate, conceptualize, create and structure in art in accordance to their individual capacities, which are inherent, and in accordance to their art educational opportunities and art environmental experiences. The foregoing discussion of structure in art applies equally to the so-called deprived youth, if we grant the validity of the "inherent creative potential in all persons", even if it appears in varying degrees. But the deprived youth, particularly one who is a member of a so-called racial or ethnic minority, will in his art, very likely reflect the conditions (or the effects thereof) of his limited outlook, environment and experience. The world of his subculture can, and often does, characterize his various forms of behavior, of which art is one. This is not a generalization to be taken as literal fact, but it is worthy of consideration.

On the other hand the creative efforts of a culturally deprived person may follow quite closely that of a privileged person. It is possible for persons of different backgrounds, experiences, and attitudes to think and act creatively in similar fashion. Art, in a sense, draws upon the inner impulses and reactions of the person creating it; thus the form or statement of the art so inspired may have little or nothing to do with the immediately recognized differences of various persons. It becomes a kind of "universal"