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Too often we hear that art school is a waste of money and unnecessary if you have talent, but as the visual arts department chair of my high school always said, " Hard work beats talent when talent refuses to work hard." Earlier this week the value of art school was brought up during my Twitch stream and after eight years in art schools I had to say something! I attended a magnet arts high school, ranked number four of all public high schools in Washington, DC: Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Afterwards, I went on to the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University and the Corcoran School of Art and Design at George Washington University. You could say I have a bit of knowledge on the subject (heheheh)! With this post I will explore what I think to be art school's strongest benefit and worst challenge. Initially, I was going to add what skills I gained from it, and how to make the most of the experience, but it was much too much. I'll expound on these topics in in future blogs.
I was fortunate to know, from early macaroni jewelry and stick figures, that I loved art. Never did I think it would grow into anything more, until I was accepted into Ellington. Every day I was encouraged, challenged, and inspired by professional artists and my peers. That is the first benefit of art school, community. The peers, professors, and teachers are invaluable resources and examples of what to do and sometimes what not to do! A rule of thumb for any area of improvement, is to only take advice from people who have accomplished the goal you are trying to achieve. Be discerning, people will have their own ideas of quality art and even you. The flip side of community is critique. I would say this is the biggest challenge for a lot of people. After investing time, money, and effort into your work it can be difficult to hear that it is ineffective or needs huge changes. I know of people who cried after every critique because their work was tied so closely to their emotions. As you will see soon, critique can also affect people who are not close to their work.
When I was studying at Tyler, I had an intermediate drawing class, and I loved it! The prompts, the material, the practice they were exactly what I wanted! However, at that time, having five years of training, it was very easy for me to whip up a drawing the morning of and get accolades. Though it was nice, I was always a bit disappointed the professors and myself were often the only ones who could point out pitfalls in my work. Eventually, I became a source of quality critique, people would even ask me to critique their work after class if I didn't give them critique during. These were the people who were also hungry to improve.
One day, three 18"x24" drawings were due for class critique and one student comes in with a single half-blank drawing. We had worked on this project all month, our classes are three hours long, and held twice a week. They had twenty hours of dedicated time (not including outside work) to finish, and they did not. In my head, I heavily debated what to say or whether I should say anything, but sure enough when their critique came everyone was silent and the glances at me prickled my back. I had established myself as the class art critic without realizing it. The student in question sat next to me the few times they came to class, and I knew for a fact they did not use that time wisely. My heart pounded and face heated in an instant, I could practically hear the blood rushing past my ears as I raised my hand. Never had I been so glad they couldn't see me blush, even reliving it now my face warms. I had to say what everyone in the studio was thinking! As kindly as possible I told the student what they already knew: it did not seem like they did much work or even wanted to. They began to lash out at me but ultimately broke down into tears trying desperately to refute my candid observation to no avail. They knew deep down it was true. I made a lot of enemies that day, but I also gained a lot of respect.
There is a misconception that art school is easy, because you can create anything you want, but that is the same reason it is not easy. Every artist begins with the basic elements and principles of art and design, but they are only tools, the real challenge is applying them to reach your intent. It could be considered "easy" to the extent of theme and style however, what you are really being critiqued on are your efforts and ability to use what you have learned. Once you get past that in later years, you are critiqued on how well your work speaks for itself. Art is more about the consumer than the creator. The mass of people that see art do not understand it, a smaller portion appreciate it, and very few seek the artist's intentions.
Ultimately, art school is what you make of it! I mostly kept to myself by nature, but if you are considering going or already enrolled, I urge you to go outside and experience all of the art opportunities you can! Make connections with your classmates and other students! Join clubs! The connections I made by just going to events and talking to people all got me various opportunities. Get the most you can out of EVERY class, even the ones foreign to you, you may end up making it your profession!
Thank you so much for reading!
Alta Koer Art Production
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Appreciate the information shown about art schools Learning to take criticism of your work, Taking what you have learned in the classroom and apply it For the future.