Is art without meaning decoration?

Most time we get so hung up on pleasing a teacher or just completing a project to get a grade, that we miss the most essential part of our artworks : the meaning behind it. The predicament that Mr. Sands described in his article is one that I can easily relate. All throughout Art 1 and for a good bit of Art 2 as well, most of the art assignments I did were were done to follow a teacher's directions to learn a new skill. For example when my Art 1 class was introduced to oil pastels, we did assignments where we drew a circle and used oil pastel to add values and make the end result look like a sphere. Although they looked good, the task was tedious and didn't allow for a whole lot of creativity. I have a few oil pastel spheres hanging on my wall, but when I go to college I probably won't take them because they hold no value to me. Another tedious aspect of art is when teachers give you the instructions for an assignment and you have limited options. In my opinion, this doesn't allow for creativity. One such assignment I did was back in art 2, when we had to recreate the style of a famous artists. The artist I ended up with was an abstract artist, and since I didn't relate to this style of art I found the project very limiting. Even though the end result imitated the style, I am not very proud of the piece of art. Art without meaning, is not appealing to the one who has to create it as there is a clear lack of inspiration and worth attached to the goal. This is why i like open ended assignments