The grammar of creative practices is described by George Steiner as the "articulate organisation of perception, reflection and experience, the nerve structure of consciousness when it communicates with itself and with others." Steiner's description of creative grammar is consistent with Lev Vygotsky's comment that "art is the social within us, and even if its action is performed by a single individual, it does not mean that its essence is individual," a remark which echoes Wittgenstein's that "essence is expressed in grammar." If artistic essence is expressed by creative grammar, this would suggest that art education needs to account for appropriating and articulating such grammar in its practices. This article argues for such an approach. It will be supported by recent generic research into the grammatical structure of creative development and expert performance; sustained by an analysis of the performative value of creative grammar as condensed by Steiner as forms of accretion, omission and nihilism; and justified by extending the analogies that Gary Hagberg makes between persons and works of art to the capacity of different creative grammars to act as an analogy for art education as a process of becoming, in which the present stock of skills and knowledge is evaluated in relationship to its potential to sustain future flourishing. (Contains 57 notes.)