Art School

May 29, 200916 yr

It's subjective and it's expressive. You can't teach that.

May 29, 200916 yr

However, there ARE fundamentals to art and design (media, color theory, conservation, figure study & anatomy, art and design history, etc.) that, if not completely objective in nature, hew to a certain standard of practice. Like any highly specialized discipline, art school benefits most those with an innate interest in the field. Art school will never turn a lazy, narcissistic, talentless trust fund kid into an artist just as Harvard Business School--aw, never mind.

May 29, 200916 yr

I agree with this. What I don't agree with is the insane level of bulls#!t art schools will take it to. I mean, there's a difference between teaching figure studies and telling a student that they're not sitting properly to draw the figure studies. It gets pretty asinine.

May 29, 200916 yr

judging by the garbage you see in New York galleries, neither can most art school graduates.

http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/

May 29, 200916 yr

LOL I can't get it on paper. I can see how something should be built/look in great detail. If I could get that on paper I would be dangerous.

May 29, 200916 yr

you should take a drawing class. The New School offers them at night; also the 92nd St. Y http://www.92y.org/shop/category.asp?category=programs888Classes888Classes+%2D+Subjects888Art888Drawing888 --that wouldn't be very far if you live in Harlem.

http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/

May 29, 200916 yr

I'm not the drawing type. In school I was the "let me put together the best team" type of guy. I create the final look, you kids work out the intricate details.

Even at work, I know the art and creative folks think I micromanage, but since I can't do their level of work, I need to sign off on every change.

May 29, 200916 yr

I've been trying to peice together what you do for a living based on some of the posts you've made about your work recently, and I can't figure it out. What the hell do you do?!

May 29, 200916 yr

Moonshine... dear, you really need to visit the urbanbar forum. there are a number of polls/threads about your fellow UO's!

I'm a people manager and motivator. :whip: :whip:

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,13618.0.html

May 29, 200916 yr

What do you motivate people to do? Quit? Kill themelves?

May 29, 200916 yr

c: all the above!

May 29, 200916 yr

Haha, awesome. I want that job, are they hiring? :)

May 29, 200916 yr

No there's only room for one black/puerto rican, bitchy shopoholic here!

June 8, 200916 yr

Some work I did at Ohio U 03-07:

Damn hair on the film! This must be an older version.

A fun photo sculpture project. Installed at the Purple Chopsticks in Athens, O for a few days. It poured buckets after I took these. They looked cool afterwards as the type melted into itself. Poignant was one of the comment I got. Got some negatives ones too. I always liked the critiques. My process was to try to remove myself from the work as much as possible so I would get to emotionally defensive when the criticism came. I tried to forget that I made this and blank my mind. Worked sometimes, sometimes it didn't.

An Ohioan! In the visor reflection, not Buzz, whose the subject. Part of a series/story I wrote. :)

Not the final version, needs some type work. Some undesired tension created with the type too close to the wrench. And I added some background shit that worked when I screen printed it for the final run. Love printmaking. I want to audit some classes at Sinclair so I can get access to an etching press and silkscreen equipment.

Friends dog, not taken while at OU. I like the little bug lust out of focal range. And the dog is nice in real life.

Not my best ones, but these are the few I have on an server. They make me smile and remember fun times. Photos look strange on computer screens. Need to figure out how to balance them for the web correctly. I miss film, but haven't used it in years. Film is rich and so creamy.

I don't regret art school for a second. There were alot of assholes, but made some great friends. Of course there were less talented and more talented folks. I thought I came in the later, but thats hard to place. Everyone develops at different times and in different ways. I found that many of the people who were in art school could do it because their parents were paying for it, and didn't understand how $ worked. It's hard to hold that against anyone, but it sticks in my craw sometimes. I keep in touch with many of them, and they're all mostly in Chicago renting expensive apartments with their parents $. Whatever, good for them I guess.

I really enjoyed the university art school setting. It kept me grounded and I had opportunities to take classes I was interested in (Logic, philosophy, history, education courses, etc...). One of my favorite projects was a 40 foot airplane slingshot, where two planes would collide in the middle. Rigged with elastic, upright post and tent stakes, and triggered by cutting a string collison zone. The whole setup fit nicely into a back pack and weighted about 10 pounds. I wonder where those videos and pictures when. Moving sucks cause I throw away to much shit!

I still make art, though not at the pace I used to. Gotta pay off some loans with my desk job first. It's more interesting lving a work-life and have an art-life at home. I enjoy the separation. I'd like to get an MFA before 30 and rectify this. Maybe in animation or something with computers. I'm getting some great experience with computer programming at my job now. Everything I get interested in can be justified as art the more I get into it an re-conceptualize it and understand its details.

I developed (pun!) some good connections in the film industry after graduation and they've hired me for a few things now and then. Sold a few things here and there, but given more to friends over the years. All the joy I get out of it is the quick process and the moment of the idea. The rest is accounting and marketing, which I'm not the best at. Not terrible either though. Just my two cents.

You don't need to go to art school to be an "artist". Some of the most creative people I've met haven't even finished high school.

Let me know what you think!

March 1, 201114 yr

Groan. The Cincinnati Art Academy has a new promo video:

I really hate this video because it perpetuates all the myths about art school.

March 2, 201114 yr

Seeing that kind of makes me miss architecture school. Staying up late in studio, building models and stuff. The deadlines almost seem so meaningless back then. Thanks for resurrecting this thread, I enjoyed seeing my post back in 2008.

March 3, 201114 yr

As it has already been mentioned, it's funny how the current hipster/artsy look strongly resmembles the hipster and artsy look of the 70 and 80s. My dad is a painter and a musician and it's stunning to see people today wearing basically the same clothing he wore in the late 70s to mid 80s.

I learned to draw on my own (and play music from my dad), but I think it would have been nice to get some post secondary art training. I wanted to go to art school, but my dad talked me out of it. I probably would have developed into a serious artist since now I kind of look at music and drawing only as 'something' to do in my spare time.

March 3, 201114 yr

Yeah the style really hasn't changed much since my one year at art school in the mid-90's. 15 years ago there were a handful of people that would now be called hipsters, then a slew of people who were hippie or grunge looking people. After 2000 the whole hipster thing grew large enough to snuff out the grunge and hippie styles.

If you look at old class photos of art schools, everyone dressed the same as anyone else up until the 60's, at which time people started wearing out-of-date styles as their style. It correlates pretty neatly with the dead-end of painting and Modernism. Overall, with the exception of video art and the rise of photography, contemporary art hasn't evolved much since about 1970.