Quote some Homer. I dare you.

For what seems like years, I have been reporting opinions and surveys of the diminishing value of design professions and similar artistic endeavors. In our related professions, Architects and Graphic Designers have been pushed aside in favor of virtually every kind of Engineer. Through the last recession, staggering unemployment percentages have been cited by many sources.

Now, we have non other than the New York Times reporting on some consequences of this trend. To see their article on the reduced interest in humanities studies, go to http://goo.gl/PskAvi. There you will see comments about such places as Harvard University, which has "... had a 20 percent decline in humanities majors over the last decade."

In my case, I came out of an Architecture School which was considered to be Engineering-oriented - my School of Architecture was part of the "Faculty of Engineering". During my class reunions, it's not uncommon for us to laugh about the group antagonism we had for mandatory "dance" class intended to make us aware of human movement though space. Over the years, however, many of my peers and co-workers have had more diverse and broad-based experience than I. As a consequence, I have developed a great respect for someone who is equally adept at quoting both William Shakespeare and I.M. Pei.

Where will we be as a society if we become dominated by technicians and scientists? The pleasure of the arts, the appreciation for history, the impact of emotions, the value of discourse and contemplation - will these all be lost? I hope not.

My suspicion is that this trend - which is no doubt real - is cyclical, related to the miserable economy we may be coming out of. Perhaps, in thirty years we'll be advocating that our children become philosophers. Now wouldn't that be fun?

I've Fallen ...

and maybe I won't have to get up. In this case down is good and up is bad. However, this is all very much sad irony.

My partner in life and business is a Graphic Designer. The template for this blog, and all things graphic in No Left Turn, are her doing. For a number of years now, we have watched as one business reporter after another slammed Architects for the perceived uselessness of their education and career choices. Through these times fraught with all the negative press we have soldiered on together - pretty much committed to our chosen fields.  It's often been a struggle to maintain the commitment. Now there comes an odd turn of events.

For the first time that I can recall, there comes a news story from Business Insider that her profession is now one of the top ten "Useless". Oddly Architecture is absent from the list. See the story at http://goo.gl/CtWVrQ.

Years ago, we hosted a small dinner party for couples where one was an Architect, and the other was a Graphic Designer. That evening was one of modest self congratulation, where we chatted up the compatibility of the two professions and how we as couples got along.  Now, years later, I hadn't expected that we would be comparing negative perceptions instead of positive ones.

Oh well, the good news is that we still like what we do, and enjoy one another as well. Too bad one of the dinner party couples broke up years ago. But that's an entirely different kind of story.