Where to begin?  The drugs?  The sex?  The sloth?  The trust funds?  The "experimental" bands?

 

Anyway, I went to art school for graphic design for exactly one year, my freshman year, then got the hell out.  Here are some color slides which are among my very first photos ever and don't really foreshadow my later photographic triumphs, but are nevertheless illustrative of the mid-90's. 

 

What's funniest about looking at these is how little the hipster/art school look has evolved.  Thrift store clothes, grandpa/ma glasses glasses, and trying to look intense has been the uniform for decades now. 

 

A fitting introduction:

 

An authentic grunge-era flannel at left (also the guy whose head is cut off at bottom left was later the original drummer of the NYC band Beat the Devil, if anyone knows who they are):

 

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable:

 

Nico/Eddie Sedgewick look-alike and date(?):

 

NYC trip, youth hostel vignette:

 

Boy meets girl:

 

British exchange student and unknown dude:

 

I can't read upside down so I don't know what he was playing, but I do recall he played Billie Jean at some point and that was the first time I had heard it since around 1985:

 

Parade:

 

1960's bike in the 1990's:

 

I smell pot:

 

No comment:

 

This is what happens when you take a photo at 1/125 and your flash sync is 1/60, then a few weeks later drop and step on the slide:

 

Art opening:

 

Spring 1997:

 

An "Axe Presenter" at basement party, introducing the band:

 

Another "Axe Presenter":

 

NYC trip:

 

Did somebody say art school?

 

Yes ma'am:

 

A shrine to Paul Rodgers:

 

The kind of lens flare possible only in the hands of a novice photographer:

 

Boring party:

 

Musicians(?):

 

Last but not least me on stage at the spring festival:

 

 

So if anyone else went to art school, let's hear some stories.  The stories are remarkably similar, no matter where you were!

Great pics indeed.

 

Making digital cameras cheap and available to every idiot (at the same time social networking increased in popularity) really bastardized the art of photography. Now the intention is shifted to people modeling for the camera instead of focusing on the d@mn essence of the event itself. The fact that you can delete a picture instantly and retake it if you don't like it also illegitamizes it.

 

Didn't you have an art gallery in Columbus? Do you have any work on your computer you could post up?

I have a work-study job currently in a printing/convenience store in the Art & Architecture building at my U.  I had an art student go ballistic at me for not serving vegetarian pizza.  I said "We serve it once and awhile, but it doesn't sell fast enough."  She replies "Well, it's stupid for you not to serve vegetarian pizza in a building with art students."  I didn't even get a chance to reply when another customer yelled "Who said it was for you?  The pizza is for the urban planners, and WE WANT MEAT DAMNIT!"

 

So yeah, maybe it wasn't your cup of tea, although I do still have a high respect for art students, just a bit moody at times though....but that's what makes their work interesting.

I have a work-study job currently in a printing/convenience store in the Art & Architecture building at my U. I had an art student go ballistic at me for not serving vegetarian pizza. I said "We serve it once and awhile, but it doesn't sell fast enough." She replies "Well, it's stupid for you not to serve vegetarian pizza in a building with art students." I didn't even get a chance to reply when another customer yelled "Who said it was for you? The pizza is for the urban planners, and WE WANT MEAT DAMNIT!"

 

So yeah, maybe it wasn't your cup of tea, although I do still have a high respect for art students, just a bit moody at times though....but that's what makes their work interesting.

 

:D

 

I self-taught everything I know about photography and art. I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but I know enough that I can keep up with all of the artsy students who claim to know more. You know, the ones who drag along a large-format camera everywhere only to snap mediocre or downright awful photos.

 

The camera is not necessarily indicative of quality. Sure, you can get larger prints out of a large-format camera, but if they come out blurry, distorted, or are just composed poorly, then what is the point?

 

Or it's like the digital versus film rants. I've shot film for years (35mm/slide, some medium) and loved every aspect of it. But it became cost prohibitive, and carrying a bucket full of film when I'm backpacking is not all that great. Plus, film has become much more costly... and finding a good developer is becoming very, very difficult. Sorry, I don't have room for a darkroom, nor the time to do it myself.

 

My first camera was a Canon AE-1, then a Nikon N80. I switched to using a Nikon D70 primarily after that, and finally a Nikon D3. Yeah, I can do some damn large prints with it, and even larger with film, but why? I have no need for prints that consume my entire wall. 11x13 is the largest that I typically print, and the largest that anyone really requests. If you have a reason for something larger than that, then by all means shoot film.

I'm in art school now. I'm not quite immersed in the "lifestyle" as most people who go to art school are, so it's hard for me to say, I think. I live waaaay off campus, plus I'm substantially older than the vast majority of the students, so I don't really relate with them in a deep and meaningful way.

 

I will say, though, that everyone else can fuck off. Art school is the best kind of school there is, and for those of you who make fun of us for being weirdos (which is true), you're just jealous.

I love those photos! Looking at them, I think that things didn't change much from the sixties into the nineties, and looking around town now, I'd say they're still very much like that in a lot of respects.

 

I never attended art school, but for a long time beginning in the late sixties I lived in the same neighborhood as the local art school (The art school moved; I'm still here)and hung out with that crowd. Some of those photos could easily have been taken at some gatherings I attended.

"for those of you who make fun of us for being weirdos (which is true), you're just jealous."

 

We're not weirdos, we're freaks.

"for those of you who make fun of us for being weirdos (which is true), you're just jealous."

 

We're not weirdos, we're freaks.

 

Either way. :)

Lawd.  I can't tell you how many hippies request that movie! 

 

Next up, BillyJack goes to Washington

Im suprised people even remember that movie.

 

It was big back in the day...the theme song even made it on to the top 40, or got enough airplay that I heard it on the radio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent one year in art school at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. These are from a 1990 photo shoot on Miami Beach:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/sculpture-class/2909/

 

Sculpture Class

 

That's what my art classes were like.

>I spent one year in art school at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.

 

Art schools have spectacular drop-out rates.  Many have just 20-30% graduation rates, which brings up the whole issue of federal student loans and why they're passed out like candy for fields of study(?) with few professional job prospects.  I still have $4000~ festering at 3% interest from that year.  At least I was in graphic design, not fibers or printmaking or glass blowing.  But I soon realized I really sucked at graphic design and got out.  But even with that small amount of education (monochrome Photoshop 3 & SyQuest disks), I almost got a graphic design job that following summer, but it fell through.  Instead, I sold motivational posters door-to-door.  Really.             

 

>ing at them, I think that things didn't change much from the sixties into the nineties, and looking around town now, I'd say they're still very much like that in a lot of respects.

 

I think the counter-cultural events and trends of that era cast a shadow that continues today.  A certain percentage of teenagers fancy themselves to be future famous writers, musicians, artists, etc., and start dressing and adopting attitudes that they think fit the part.  Obviously, they are reacting to media representations of those things, so it's fake.  And the motivation is fame, not money so much (they've already got plenty of money, duh!), so I think that reveals a particular insecurity.

 

^The arrogant students were the first to be crushed where I went.

 

I attended Center for Creative Studies from 1988-1993 and graduated with a BFA in graphic communications, art direction and design. No photos from my time in art school; I was too busy pulling 20-hour days. I'd never worked harder in my life, and never will again. I had classmates who were former military who washed out--basic training and destroying enemy targets was nothing compared to full-on four year art school. I have some mental snapshots of a few freaky classmates, but on the whole we were pretty buttoned down. There was really nobody to impress; either you were good or you weren't, and being in downtown Detroit, there was plenty of culture/activities of interest to accommodate our needs (raves, jazz clubs, rock clubs; entho-rock, ska, rock-a-billy, surf and rock shows; house and apartment parties in bad neighborhoods; exploring and scrapping abandoned structures; drinking oneself silly between marker layouts and airbrush sessions, etc). Cliché as it sounds, the alumni of CCS actually DOES read like a who's-who of the industry--my peers are with Lucasfilm and Pixar; lead designers at pretty much every car company; capos of many of the major ad agencies and design houses, not to mention seats on the boards of museums and fine arts faculties across the land.

 

So yeah. No danger of me having some kind of chip on my shoulder, though I like to think it's mitigated by a powerful respect for great artists and a fully-developed realization that I'll never be one of them.

That's what my art classes were like.

 

Were you a student, or the model?

 

    I almost went to art school.

 

    The art building was full of grafiti and the art students dressed like weirdos, and that pretty much turned me off of art school.  :-P

"either you were good or you weren't"

 

My experience at a university with a strong art program (Kent - specifically the graphic design school) was that there were those who were great, those who were good, and those who simply didn't have it. Within each of those groups - there were those who refused to believe that anything they were taught could make them better, and those who realized they always had something to learn. Guess who ended up with good jobs in the field, and who ended up working as accountants (aka in jobs they hated but with better pay)?

 

I can definitely attest to the disconnect with reality when it comes to the art schools and the universities. Mind you academia is always a little out of touch with the "real world" but those I've encountered with the stereotypical "art school" background have the rudest awakening when it comes to entering the design industry, working their way up, etc. I mean, it's great that your senior portfolio garnered awards out the wazoo but you're the "new person" and you need to prove yourself all over again, just like everyone else before you.

Going to a dedicated four year school, the filters were pretty intense. Not everybody was great, but few if any truly didn't belong there. In fact, probably only 5% of the students were mind-blowingly good, and those were the ones who showed up that way. The rest of us, we had to work our asses off just to stay alive. Even the outstanding students didn't really cop a disproportionately arrogant attitude. Our teachers weren't above ripping ALL of us to shreds in critique. That's what kept us humble, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. A song I closely associate with my first couple of years is "Knock Me Down" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, specifically, the following lyrics:

 

If you see me getting mighty,

If you see me getting high,

Knock me down.

I'm not bigger than life

 

Repeat for 144 Credit Hours.

haha jmeck nice choices -- i'd say you captured art school very well.

Interesting no architecture or LA students have posted on this thread.

 

 

My dream was to go to Pratt. This was back when I was dumb and thought I could be a millionaire artist (and thought I could get in to Pratt).  I'm quite good at freehand drawing though.

 

I recently found out you can actually get a joint JD/Masters in Urban Design with Pratt and brooklyn law school. Strange.

 

 

^I was accepted to Pratt and a few other schools in that caliber but even with financial aid and scholarships, there's NO fricking way I could have managed the $20K+ tuition/R&B annually (this was back in 1990). Even if I had, the monthly payments on that kind of debt could easily swamp someone in my industry who is just starting out.

 

A friend ended up going and graduated and unlike the trust-funders in her class who wanted a job to appease the parents, she needed to work in order to live. She lost out on a job because a trust-funder flat out told the employer "I'll take the job for $10 an hour less than what you're offering". Once she landed a gig, she was one of a few who had any sort of work ethic and eventually relocated to Portland, Oregon to escape that mentality. I'm sure everyones' experience is different but hers is one that makes me appreciate my more humble beginnings.

i know some instructors at pratt and there are tons of clevelanders that go there.

 

in fact i even did an indians-yankees game thread a couple years ago where we went to the game, sorta, with the half of the pratt mfa class that year who were clevelanders:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,9283.0.html

 

all are doing well. some are working in galleries and others with other artists, jeff koons is one, and i have gone to their own shows, etc. everyone of them has aspirations back home too.

 

pratt is very expensive and definately not the best art school either (that would be risd), but more importantly depending on what you want to do in the art world the opportunity and connections are priceless.

 

^I was accepted to Pratt and a few other schools in that caliber but even with financial aid and scholarships, there's NO fricking way I could have managed the $20K+ tuition/R&B annually (this was back in 1990). Even if I had, the monthly payments on that kind of debt could easily swamp someone in my industry who is just starting out.

 

A friend ended up going and graduated and unlike the trust-funders in her class who wanted a job to appease the parents, she needed to work in order to live. She lost out on a job because a trust-funder flat out told the employer "I'll take the job for $10 an hour less than what you're offering". Once she landed a gig, she was one of a few who had any sort of work ethic and eventually relocated to Portland, Oregon to escape that mentality. I'm sure everyones' experience is different but hers is one that makes me appreciate my more humble beginnings.

 

Yeah there was the whole tuition and cost of living thing too lol.

I'm sure pratt is 30-40k by now.

 

I know a girl that just transfered to Fine Arts in DAAP and she thinks she's making a lot of money when she's out, because the program is highly ranked or whatever. I didn't say anything to disappoint her because I know her parents are fairly wealthy and would never allow her rent to be paid late or anything, later in life. That and I'm sure she will find a man who makes good money to support her. Ugh some people have it so easy.

When looking at an art school it is essential to consider the institution's commitment to job placement. A major advantage of CCS was the incredible number of internships offered at ad agencies and design firms around Detroit. I interned at Young & Rubicam and had an open-ended freelance offer after the internship concluded. I felt like I learned more in the first week of that internship than in the previous two years of school. Maybe I did. Regardless, I established many contacts in the industry that assured me continued success. By the time I graduated I had a $30K (adjusted to today's numbers) Junior level writing job at J. Walter Thompson (I used my contacts and industry experience to jump over from design and art direction to copywriting). I feel bad for kids who graduate from a university with a degree, a portfolio, but no practical industry experience. It would seem to put a person at a HUGE disadvantage.

^In all seriousness, I was fortunate that I worked for the Daily Kent Stater. Sure, it's a campus paper but it's published 4x weekly, and has a circulation of about 15K. Working there gave me the opportunity to design ads for Target, Papa Johns, and quite a few corporate places that gave me more "street cred" than the pieces from my "academic" portfolio. Also, I did some production work for the campus magazine and I can't say enough how that experience benefitted me later. Most of my classmates had no idea how to work a photo-stat camera, or how to correct photos (in Photoshop 3) so they print properly.

 

"Ugh some people have it so easy."

 

I say this because I wish someone had said it to me when I was your age. Yes, those people have it easy - *now*, and yeah some may never actually understand what it's like to have to genuinely work for a living. That girl's parents won't be around forever, and if she has any sense, she'll try to establish herself before becoming dependent on someone else to pay the bills. People like that never know what it's like to be able to say with humble confidence "I'm where I am today because I wanted it, I worked my @ss off and I earned it". I know that sounds cheesey as all h#ll, but when you're able to look back and say that it was YOU who got you to where you are, there's a world of difference. When you're used to doing things on your own, you begin to realize that you are much better equipped to deal with any kind of sh!t that comes your way than anyone who has had their privileged life handed to them.

 

Photo stats...the memories are all flooding back like so much Bestine. Pulling stats; turning out Kroy type headlines; mitering the corner on a border tape border; slicing individual lines of copy with my X-acto freehand and waxing them onto the next column; fixing nicks in the rubdown my trusty 000 rapidiograph. Kids these days know NOTHING...

...  turning out Kroy type headlines; mitering the corner on a border tape border; slicing individual lines of copy with my X-acto freehand and waxing them onto the next column ...

 

I think I probably still have some Kroy type and border tape somewhere in my roll-top desk.  :-)

Photo stats...the memories are all flooding back like so much Bestine. Pulling stats; turning out Kroy type headlines; mitering the corner on a border tape border; slicing individual lines of copy with my X-acto freehand and waxing them onto the next column; fixing nicks in the rubdown my trusty 000 rapidiograph. Kids these days know NOTHING...

 

Did your professors use a jewelers' lupe to make sure those corners were perfect 90-degree angles? Yeah *that's* what I had to put up with!

 

I was a foreman of the night shift at the paper; nothing like having to treat people with second-degree burns from the waxing machine or minor lacerations from some dimwit walking around with their X-acto in hand!! :x

 

Honestly the timing couldn't have been better - everyone on the staff (editorial and production) were responsible for taking that beast of a paper into pagination - that alone was enough to make more than one prospective employer channel Joey Lawrence "whoa!?!".

>I was accepted to Pratt and a few other schools in that caliber but even with financial aid and scholarships, there's NO fricking way I could have managed the $20K+ tuition/R&B annually (this was back in 1990).

 

Yeah, I was accepted to Pratt too.  I think it was $28k tuition and I was going to get a $4,000 scholarship so with room & board that just wasn't going to work.  Sorry I forgot to mention it, but those photos are from Kansas City Art Institute, which was a lot less expensive than the other top 5 art schools and I think I got $5500 from them.  Looking back, all that high school artwork was totally, completely, and absolutely terrible!  I feel so bad for those people who have to travel around the country for portfolio reviews!  I don't know how these folks are supposed to see a pea of potential from the scrawlings of 17 year-olds.  There are too many points where we can have personal problems and fall off the wagon, and of course craft has nothing to do with ideas, and there are some teenagers with craft, but none with ideas.   

 

^^My feeling about critiques is completely different from yours, jmeck. Maybe it was my school, but I found the experience enlightening and invigorating. The critiques I remember most fondly were the ones where I was handed my ass--those were the ones that actually taught me something. I did very well for myself in my school and graduated near the top of my department and with plaudits up the butt, but I never for a second felt like I didn't earn it because I did. I wasn't one of the kids who showed up good; quite the opposite. But I learned how to survive and I learned how to learn, and not to sound all Zen or anything, I figured out that the path to knowledge began with admitting that I didn't know jack sh!t.

 

I still don't know jack sh!t, but now I do it with confidence.

Nothing makes you more humble than a friggin critique; seriously. Those people are ruthless.

>Didn't you have an art gallery in Columbus? Do you have any work on your computer you could post up?

 

No, I most certainly don't own an art gallery!  But it brings up an interesting subject, since most art galleries are run as hobbies, often by the wives of wealthy men.  Many of the rest are supported by donations and grants.  I'm somewhat opposed to the latter business model because it guarantees an odd sort of conservatism.  Specifically not-for-profit galleries have to jump through all kinds of hoops for grant applications and renewals.  It's better when there's no expectation of making money and no need to keep accurate records, as is the case when somebody with some extra money opens up a gallery.  It then becomes the opinion of basically one person, which is better than decision by committee. 

 

>friggin critique; seriously. Those people are ruthless.

 

It's mostly political.  I had some truly terrible professors in college, some of them truly awful people.  Obviously there was trouble when I started ignoring them and going over their head, and I believe had a hand in one of them getting fired, but I'm still not sure and will never get a straight answer.  I had numerous professors with conspicuous drug habits, a few who were abusive to their wives, one OU professor who punched his girlfriend in a bar in front of a few students.  And these people were loud feminists.  And they were people who could and did mess with our finances and our transcripts. 

 

 

 

It's mostly political

 

...or aesthetics.

 

The comments on galleries is interesting, as I always wondered about the business side, how that works.  Do galleries make money on a commission basis?  If so whats the standard % comission, or how does it very.

 

  I'd think only galleries in places like NYC or Chicago could actually turn a profit, let alone break even, if they survived on commissions.

 

>>It's mostly political

 

>>...or aesthetics.

 

Believe me, after a few years dealing with these people daily, it turns into something like a bad marriage and you can't stand the sight of each other.  The students who organize the student galleries can bully people they don't like, either not giving them shows or giving them shows on dates that conflict with other major university functions.  All this has to do with personalities and how they interact, not the artwork. 

 

 

>The comments on galleries is interesting, as I always wondered about the business side, how that works.  Do galleries make money on a commission basis?  If so whats the standard % comission, or how does it very.  I'd think only galleries in places like NYC or Chicago could actually turn a profit, let alone break even, if they survived on commissions

 

Right, galleries even at the local level take a 30-40% cut.  So poor artists get a taste of what it's like being in the 36% tax bracket.  Local galleries are in a really tough spot now because a lot of buyers bypass the gallery by looking up the artists on the web and negotiating deals via email without the gallery knowing.  If you asked a gallery owner about that they might not be aware how much it's happening, but I can tell you from firsthand experience that it's happening.  Collectors get the piece for less and the artist gets more in his pocket.  Say a piece costs $500 to make, it sells at a gallery for $2,000, but then the gallery takes $800 -- that's why art is priced so high.  One of my non-famous friends priced a piece at his show in Columbus recently at $14,000.  Obviously it wasn't going to sell but it cost him something like $5,000 to make so after the gallery took its cut he needed to make money. 

 

Better-known artists who are "represented" by galleries with a long-term contract can't sell anything without the gallery getting its cut.  If they do then they either sustain a fine or the contract is torn up and they're back out on the street.  A more recent phenomenon is the biggest artists leaving the gallery system and selling new work through auction houses like Sotheby's and it's only a matter of time before some with name recognition start selling their work on Ebay.  Obviously Ebay's cut is a lot lower than a gallery.     

 

New York is still solidly the center of the art world with LA being #2 and from everything I understand not particularly well-connected.  Despite the internet, there apparently still isn't a lot of communication between the LA and New York people which means the two scenes are quite different.  Chicago is #3 but I understand there really isn't much going on there (collectors still want artists to be validated by New York), and then the only other city of any renown is Miami, with everything below that being nobodies. 

You're a bitter, bitter man, jmecklenborg.

So, a 40% cut...when a painting or whatever is priced at, say, $1000, at a gallery 40% of that price is the gallery cut. The buyer pays the 40% because its included?

 

Or is it 40% of the sales price, and the artist pays the 40%?

 

Also, how does insurance work. Im sure there is some sort of insurance involved in the case the paintings are damaged at the gallery for whatever reason?

 

 

...

Or is it 40% of the sales price, and the artist pays the 40%?

...

 

That's the way it works, in my experience. I was paying 50% in Chicago.

>You're a bitter, bitter man, jmecklenborg.

 

Is it really that obvious?

 

 

>Or is it 40% of the sales price, and the artist pays the 40%?

 

It's 40% of the sale price.  So an artist receives $600~ from a $1000 sale.  Also, if the sale is in-state, the buyer has to pay sales tax.  Then, the gallery owner has to pay tax on its annual profits, as does the artist.  That is, if the sale is reported to the IRS.  Cough.   

 

 

>Also, how does insurance work. Im sure there is some sort of insurance involved in the case the paintings are damaged at the gallery for whatever reason?

 

An artist signs an exhibition contract with the gallery.  Honestly, I don't know how the insurance works.  I do know that not-for-profit galleries sometimes employ individuals doing court-ordered community service, so anything can happen. 

 

What people need to realize is that art is really expensive because people are just trying to cover their costs and few people are making their entire living making or dealing it.  To make a living purely from art sales, the volume has to be enormous.  So when Gregory Crewdson is demanding $20,000 for each of his photographs, he's not really making that much money.  He's in the 36% tax bracket so he's only pocketing $7,000 or $8,000 from each photograph after the gallery cut, and that's not even counting the enormous production costs.  So actually he's lucky to be making even $5K from each print, so he'd be needing to sell 20 $20,000 photographs per year to make a good living, which he most certainly is doing, but I think it illustrates just how tough the economics are.  The gallery cuts are a big motivation for artists to make speaking appearances since they get to keep all the money the government doesn't get, but obviously the galleries are a necessary part of the system.     

 

 

 

 

I got around to scanning some old images today.  This one's from summer 2008, the guy on the right is famous for having cut off his finger on OU's table saw while making stretchers for his paintings. Look closely and you can see the reattached forefinger:

 

 

No "suffering for your art" comments, please. 

 

A less obvious view:

Nothing makes you more humble than a friggin critique; seriously. Those people are ruthless.

 

I was just talking about this topic with a friend who now teaches at DAAP.  We both had the same opinion of the crits, in that they were basically worthless because no one had (or still has) the balls to tell you what they really think.  Everyone was too polite and it destroyed the purpose of the crit.

^This was definitely not the case at CCS. Not in the late 80s, early 90s at least.

^This was definitely not the case at CCS. Not in the late 80s, early 90s at least.

 

Yeah, I think it's more a case of people being insecure about their work.  When you're insecure about your own work, you're not going to be 100% honest with someone about their stuff for fear of what they'll say about yours.

 

 

Most people who grew up in a "serious" environment don't end up in art classes, if only because the parents won't let them. The result is a bunch of people who weren't criticized directly by their parents and so really aren't used to criticism. Unfortunately at a lot of schools, like the one where I teach part-time, you basically can't criticize the work of the students at all because they'll go nuts. They'll sue the school (really). The flip to that is you can't compliment students too much either because then they'll all expect it.   

 

Yeah, I think it's more a case of people being insecure about their work. When you're insecure about your own work, you're not going to be 100% honest with someone about their stuff for fear of what they'll say about yours.

 

That's totally true.

 

But what artists need to realize is that no one is really "there" yet. Some people are more "there" than others, I guess .. but being "there" just means being more confident in your own ability as an artist.

 

But if you're not constantly evolving and growing as an artist, you're stagnating. It's that simple. And growth takes risk. Sometimes it blows up in your face. But it's helpful to have people tell you when something doesn't work, and it takes humility to not get insecure about it and listen to it and use it instead of get defensive about it and explain why you think everyone but you is wrong. But I'd rather take a risk and have something blow up in my face than play it safe and be a coward all the time.

Anyone seen the movie "Art School Confidential"? It offers a pretty funny if not damning view of art school.

Yeah, I think it's more a case of people being insecure about their work. When you're insecure about your own work, you're not going to be 100% honest with someone about their stuff for fear of what they'll say about yours.

 

That's totally true.

 

But what artists need to realize is that no one is really "there" yet. Some people are more "there" than others, I guess .. but being "there" just means being more confident in your own ability as an artist.

 

But if you're not constantly evolving and growing as an artist, you're stagnating. It's that simple. And growth takes risk. Sometimes it blows up in your face. But it's helpful to have people tell you when something doesn't work, and it takes humility to not get insecure about it and listen to it and use it instead of get defensive about it and explain why you think everyone but you is wrong. But I'd rather take a risk and have something blow up in my face than play it safe and be a coward all the time.

 

The problem I had with art school stemmed from my total misconception of what art school was supposed to be.  I went in thinking that my creativity was going to be embraced and nurtured.  To me, art is all about expression.  I gravitate towards musicians who tend to be more creative and have more, for lack of a better term, soul, than musicians who are classically trained.  It's the same for visual arts, too.  So when I went in and was immediately told that while my work was excellent, I was "doing it wrong," I took offense. 

 

I realize now that the point of art school is to teach you how to make art, but not necessarily how to be an artist.  Which ultimately, is completely pointless.

Graffiti on the back of CCS back in the day: "These are students not artists."

 

Art school gives you the mechanics and the muscles. The rest is all you. It's tough to separate the craftsman from the artist which is why art students get so bent out of shape about critiques. My attitude was then (and still is now) "I'm happy to please you, but it's knowing what displeases you that will help me grow."

Graffiti on the back of CCS back in the day: "These are students not artists."

 

Art school gives you the mechanics and the muscles. The rest is all you. It's tough to separate the craftsman from the artist which is why art students get so bent out of shape about critiques. My attitude was then (and still is now) "I'm happy to please you, but it's knowing what displeases you that will help me grow."

 

Yeah, I don't think an artist needs to be making work to please others.

I thought about going to art school, but I can't draw.  I can see the vision but cannot translate it from my head to paper.

 

I'm sure if I had some schooling my renovations wouldn't be as hard as i felt they were.

 

I don't think everyone is in need of formal training / schooling when it comes to Art.  It's subjective.