Arthur Lismer, Canada's Artist/Adult Educator: Art as a Lifelong Relationship.

This document examines the key elements of Canadian artist Arthur Lismer's life (1885-1969) and depicts his philosophy as an art educator by excerpting his writings. In addition, the paper examines that philosophy against the framework of Barer-Stein's Universal Learning Process to emphasize the difference between "role internalizing" and "reflective internalizing" and to emphasize the implications of an understanding of this difference for arts providers and promoters. The Universal Learning Process has the following phases and themes: (1) being aware, with themes consisting of relevance, curiosity, and enticement; (2) observing, with themes spectator and sightseer; (3) acting or trying out, with themes witness-appraiser, missionary, cluster-judgment, living-the-life; (4) rote internalizing, with themes behavior and feelings that become habitual and the paradox that the more one knows something the less he or she is aware of knowing it; (5) confronting, with themes conflict, withdrawal, and passivity; and (6) reflective internalizing, with themes consisting of a four-fold response to a disturbance of the familiar (hearing/listening, critical recursive reflective/heeding), and paradox. Lismer supported reflective response over passive reception as both the core of teaching art and practicing it in daily life. If arts education provokes and releases the artistic essence in each individual, art appreciation would always be active response, requiring reflection and dialogue between the art and the self. (The document contains a 22-item bibliography.) (CML)