This week, I've been having a bit of a mini-crisis-of-faith about my art-making (as one does) so this week's art card struck a chord. I enjoyed art school, but I know many who blame it for a total loss of creative drive. I'm not surprised that it's getting many comments. The card is a picture of the Mona Lisa with the text Art school is making me HATE ART. The pity is, there are so many ways to approach art, and the one espoused at the student's school is only one of them. I wonder if it's the syllabus, the teaching style, the other students - ? How I wish I could have a chat with the writer of this card, to find out what is at the heart of the situation, and explore some ways to change.
It could be that the writer is doing the wrong course - perhaps they'd be better suited to design or animation, or perhaps a classical Atelier which teaches realism. Perhaps they should be doing philosophy, sociology or literature to explore the ideas that inspire their art. Or perhaps they should be out working and traveling, gathering experiences. I guess we'll never know.
Comments
I can understant it. What kind of education you get, the emphasis of it, makes a big difference. Sometimes the education is so Esoteric and has so much pressure to “think outside the box” their way, and “find your own style” that art is lost in it.
I often think the reason I learned to draw at all is because I stopped taking art in the 8th grade. So many that I know who have a fine art degree really cannot draw, and can only do what they were taught. It is as if they have the creative spark snuffed out. The became so indoctrinated in what art is and is not, what art does and does not, that their own judgmental leanings stop them from being truly creative.
They come to believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to paint. That painting is better than drawing, etc.
Others, who have a good art education, find that art school freed them from their own self-limiting preconceptions. What is hard is to judge what kind of education a school offers before you go there.
Well said, Starr. It depends so much on the individual, and on the individuals they encounter at art school, too.
I once met an ex-student from my art school who had given up art, and was deeply bitter about it. I was shocked – perhaps I’d been lucky, as a printmaker, to be something of an apprentice with lecturers who valued old-fashioned craftsmanship. Or perhaps the student had other issues that I wasn’t privy to.
Personalities can be very important – I notice many of the commenters on the Postsecret forum mentioning the superficiality and elitism rife at art school. I’ve often observed that art students would do well if they spent as much time in the studio as they did swanning about at gallery openings!
School has to be about making the art. While visiting galleries can be important in the learning process, it cannot take the place of making art.
It should be about perfecting craft also. Not just churing it out, but working on the quality of what it produced.
As an 18 year old, fresh out of high school, I decided to attend Northern Illinois University and major in ART. One of my “required” but no credit class, was an auditorium lecture class.
Meeting once a week,this class was designed to provide new ART majors with an overview of the ART field. Each week there was a repeating refrain…”Most of you will not earn your living in ART. Most of you will work in factories and do ART on the side…”
After 3 or 4 weeks of hearing this depressing message, I stopped attending the class. At the end of that semester I transferred to a local Jr. college as an ART major. Upon completing my second semester as an ART major, the message I received at NIU’s lecture remained in my head. Thinking that I wanted to be able go to college, get some degree that would allow me to earn a living, I changed majors.
After 8 years I finally finished my Bachelors Degree in Communications. Over the years I have supplemented my income with Art in some form (painting signs, designing brochures, photography…) I always regretted not getting my ART degree. I regret allowing NIU’s professors to dissuade a naive 18 year old from embracing his real joy and talent.
In 1969, the ART possibilities paled in comparison to the numerous opportunities that exist today. As I approach retirement, I intend to return to my first love, and resume my passion with ART. I will forever wonder, “What if…What if I had ignored the negativity of NIU’s professors and got my degree in ART…”
Yeah, my art teacher was an insufferable narcissistic arrogant prick. Hovered over my shoulder like a vulture when I was trying to work on my assignment….ugh! I’m still drawing
!!
And yes, he did say….most of you won’t make a living off your art. Whatever! Art is the only thing that makes me truly happy and I’m currently pursuing it as an occupation
Keep hacking away at it guys
I heard all of that too, Most of you won’t make a living, blah, blah, blah.
Instead they should concentrate on explaining the business of art.
One reason I got a commercial art degree, and was told I had “sold out” my art, but I simply told them, yes, as in commercial, as in people pay me to make art.
While many will not make a full time artist all their lives, they can be artists all thier lives. Today there are options.
I do find most fine art departments, are not equiped to help students make a livng at being artist. It can be done, but there are trade-offs.
And there will be good times and bad times. Just like the rest of life.
Again, learning the craft of art is a big help.
You know Jimmy, I’ve been thinking about your comment all week. It’s a shame that you were dissuaded from following your art dreams.
I sometimes wonder, if we are easily dissuaded in our youth, that maybe it’s for the best: to make it as a professional takes incredible drive and commitment, and maybe we wouldn’t have cut it anyway? Perhaps we would have, but who knows?
I sometimes wonder if I could have done better as an artist – I took a ‘day job’ and had a family, so haven’t been as serious about my art-making as I might. But one of the key things was the disappointing result of my first exhibition – I ended up in debt!
In the end, there’s no point in worrying about ‘what might have been’. There’s a lot of plusses to having some real life experience – so many artists are very self-absorbed and making ‘art about art’. But you can make art about real life. Also your skills as a commercial artist will stand you in good stead. Sometimes Fine Art doesn’t teach you much.
I think it also comes down to your definition of success.
I did not “do” art at all in my youth. It was not an option, but something I came at later, as an adult, after I had taught myself to draw and paint, then I went back to school, so I think that maturity made a big difference.
It is not too late. Life leaves times for second and even third careers.
In my youth I liked to draw and some people thought I was quite good – but you know how it is – you leave school, get married, have kids. After years of endless housework and the hard work of bringing up children and putting everyone else first, now they have left the nest I am finding time to be ME. Being me means getting back to doing what I loved – drawing. OK – I’m not good and have forgotten plenty, but I am improving – albeit slowly. I’ve being doing an online course and not keeping up with the others – but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am enjoying myself for the first time in years.
To all of you out there who have been put down by others – follow your heart, follow your dream – and have fun doing it.
Well at almost 40 I understand what the student initially wrote. After going to art school and graduating I eventually stopped working on any art at all. I hated it really. The majority of the experience I had in school destroyed my interest in creating anything. It’s only now years late I am trying to find the natural inspiration in me that was not totally destroyed while in school.
I know how you feel.
From an early age I could draw, my skill developed…and I could paint. I developed a reputation in my tweens as being artist and a dreamer. By the time I reached uni, I knew what I was going to do. I did a Art foundation course, and I found I struggled, when other people were jumping around backwards and forwards to the library getting references, and cracking on with practical work with ease and professionalism, I was dragging my knuckles, my energy and enthuasism would go within 2 hours. When I reached the end of an assignment I realised I hadn’t got the edge… It nearly made me cry when I seen how I had gone backwards compared to other people who had overtaken me and were applauded. I passed regardless….but an ‘average’ boarder lining on bad.
I proceeded onto a FINE ART course with even less enthusiasm then I ever had before in my life, which scared me, I knew there was nothing else I could do with my life but art, art was the only thing I was good at, and now I wasn’t even ‘that good’ at it. Again I through my whole body and mind into more assignments, with art history piled ontop e grinned-and-bared it, even though I found it very unstimulating. I could see my younger self in other people doing brilliantly…working 9 till 6.
I knew I was in trouble when my first mark came through for something I excelled out ‘c’….then more ‘Cs’.
We had a discussion about why we chose art, and I had to protend I was nipping to the toil3t, because I knew I couldn’t say what was in my head…I was unstable. It got worse when my art history lecturor said I could be dyslexic…which made me realise no matter how hard I worked in other academic subjects in the past what I wrote down was inaccurate…and no one had realised!
Art is my hobby not my work…I have nothing else I’m capable of doing, this course as you said is killing my spirit and exposing my flaws and demons.
I’m 18 and since I was 2 I’ve had a passion for drawing horses. I became very talented so when I was 13 I chose Art for GCSE. I hated because all I’d ever drawn were horses, and in class we had to draw still life objects and paint things. I fell behind, and would only just pass assignments by the skin of my teeth, and when it came to the final exam unit in I was really behind. Mum was and encouraged me enough to fill a portfolio in time to pass with an ‘A’.
Mum wanted me to do an Art course at college. The year started TERRIBLY! My teacher would throw away work she didn’t like, treated us like kids, and was very opinionated. She made me so miserable that I stopped seeing Art as a hobby and began to see it as a punishment. The teacher was sacked and I stopped doing work altogether, and threw away my portfolios.
Eventually in March a new teacher came on the scene. His love and enthusiasm for Art was infectious and he is such a hard working man. He re-lit that fire I once had and “gave me the reins” as you might say. We had to re-start all our work from September, giving us 3 months to fit in 8 months worth of work, but we did it and completed our first unit, and got our exam unit done too, just in time. For the exam unit I used horses in my work and I loved every minute of it, and got two ‘A’s for my AS-level.
I’d got my confidence back because of this teacher, but this year – starting last September – I’d lost that spark again. I’ve always hated drawing around people – I’m very introverted and prefer for no-one to see me work – so lessons in college have been really stressful for me and I’m so unmotivated that I’m not getting work done at home either, and I’m back to hating Art. I’m working with horses again in this unit, but I don’t feel passionate about it now.
I wish I’d kept Art as a hobby, not work. I tell myself “2 more months and I’ll never have to draw until I genuinely want to.” But to be honest, I’d rather die than wait out those 2 months.
Vicky, I’m so sorry to hear about your struggles with your art course! What a misery. Your teacher sounds good – can you try talking to them about your issues? Perhaps they can find some strategies to help you get through the next two months. You need to a) keep your sanity, b) not let it affect your schooling generally and c) hopefully get a decent mark for the unit. With “a” being the most important at this point.
You’ve had a real double-whammy with this one. First that apalling teacher – heavens, how on earth did they ever qualify! So it’s a plus that you did start to find some enjoyment in working in your favorite topic again. It’s something I noticed in art school a lot – if you were doing anything decorative or traditional (I remember one girl who loved drawing cats) – it was frowned upon.
Issues with making art around people is a difficult one and I’m not sure what you could do about that, beyond trying to make some art at home. But again, do talk to your teacher.
But the fundamental problem is I think that you’re not ejoying having to make art for assessment. You’ll need to talk with your mum about it too. She probably felt she was doing the right thing, encouraging your creativity – too few parents do that. Perhaps you can look at another direction for your career, and do art as a rewarding hobby.