Answer:
notice two assumptions: first is that the main value of art is its artifacts, its products, and that the change it would produce would be in the viewer (who needs to be educated "about art" to comprehend its value or message). Closely related is the assumption that people should only make art if they are "good at it." If we think that art is mainly about making excellent products to be viewed by others, then (it is implied) it better be "good," to be worthy of the viewers' time, ticket price, grant and tax dollars, etc. This is used as basis for questioning the value of art.
After three decades of art making (I am a dancer/choreographer) and teaching such practices, I have come to find that perhaps the most valuable aspect of art, and its greatest potential to generate change, is in the individual and the experience/learning that occurs through artistic processes. When one engages in art-making practices, they activate new areas of the brain, foster novel connections, make advantage of bilateral brain functioning, and discover not only new content, but new means of thinking about problems. Art making fosters creativity--that is, altering assumptions that block ability to change. The applications of training the mind in this way are difficult to estimate, and go well beyond making art to communicate a message to a viewer. I agree with Hugo's comment on the primary value of education. I would obviate the dualism and argue that education wouldn't have to be "first," before art, if artistic processes and practices were better understood and functionally integrated as core methods of education and critical thinking, rather than merely added as "extra-curriculars" or "enrichment" (and only if funding is sufficient to warrant such "luxuries.")
If we were to culturally shift our appreciation of art to primarily value its processes and experiences as integrative learning in their own right then art gains a much stronger argument for its function in society, education, health/welll-being, and so on. If more people were engaged in artistic processes, that might lead to more creative change.
Now whether that change is "positive" is really another question. One shouldn't assume that art's purpose is "positive" anymore than science and technology. Science has produced many negative outcomes in its primary pursuits of knowledge and control of nature. Question: To what extent do we assume that science (education and products) contributes mainly to "positive" change?
