As a teacher of art teachers, this author values and promotes an education through the arts that loves freedom, an education through art connected to powerful social ideas and movements, connected to social justice. This is not a kind of education common today in public schools, but it has a rich lineage. Drawing inspiration from Maxine Greene, Lev Vygotsky, and other theoretical strands, her goal is to encourage student art teachers to see the connections between art, education, and social change. She publicizes these connections to attract art education students who are excited by and attracted to social justice work. In this article, the author contends that the right direction in education is always art, and that the direction to go in art education is toward whatever is bubbling up from the movements for social justice. More precisely, it is about bringing the "velvet vulva" to school. This is art education organized around the serious fun of risky, surprising experiences with artists, activists, and ideas that are current and important. Art, planted in a field of education and social action, is the seed--it can crack classrooms open, and make possible a rich and wholly humanizing and vision-expanding education for every child. That is the catalyzing power of the arts in education. (Contains 5 figures.)