Connecting Art, Learning, and Creativity: A Case for Curriculum Integration

The author argues that 'substantive' art integration harmonizes with contemporary postmodern thought in art education and represents a strategy for teaching art in a postmodern way. Bringing together theories from cognitive science and metaphor theory (specifically connection and projection), the author shows how substantive integration promotes learning and creativity. Images that connect art and science are given as examples of substantive integration in postmodern art that reveal mental processes and create meaning and insight through conceptual 'collage.' These images help teachers and students understand the conceptual basis for much postmodern art and give educators clues to cognition and creative processes that can guide, deepen, and update practice in artmaking and in teaching.