Althouse: Taking art school seriously.

January 17, 2012

Taking art school seriously.

"Art School Confidential really sort of characterized the art school of the ’60s... This was a partying, drug-ridden era and it wasn’t considered a serious environment."

29 comments:

rhhardin said...: According to John Derbyshire, art school, somehow exempt from Title IX, is entirely females and a few gays.; 1/17/12, 8:15 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Althouse should know.

How about a tell-all expose?; 1/17/12, 8:18 AM
A. Shmendrik said...: Kristopher =/= Cristo. Evidently.; 1/17/12, 8:18 AM
Bob_R said...: One of the big problems that art schools have is that so many people are exposed to K-12 art programs with no rigor at all. Playtime. Be "creative." I know a few serious visual artists who have really exerted themselves and you can see it in the bones of their work. For each of them I know a dozen other who...are "creative."; 1/17/12, 8:26 AM
MadisonMan said...: Art School seems to me a way to extract money from most potential artists.

I'm sure the administrators think it's worthwhile, as they laugh on their way to the bank.; 1/17/12, 8:33 AM
Salamandyr said...: My wife went to MICA. She said after freshman year, no one had a drug problem, because you couldn't smoke pot and keep up with the course load. Except for the conceptual art majors.

Interestingly, she said a lot of her classmates were disappointed by the direction of a lot of the teachers. The teachers, schooled in the 60's, largely rejected classical art and reveled in the modern, and the students, uninspired by that stuff, wanted to learn the classical illustration techniques of the masters.; 1/17/12, 8:49 AM
Wince said...: I really liked Art School Confidential, but it was so post-1960s, at least 25 year later.

"Do you have any idea how long it to me to paint this way?

Twenty-five years."; 1/17/12, 9:18 AM
edutcher said...: I guess it's not as enlightening as one of those courses you sent away for on the back of a comic book.

WV "badvps" A club for Joe Biden.; 1/17/12, 10:04 AM
Moose said...: I, for the first time in my life, bought some pieces of original art from an artist at a nearby (and very good) art school.

Having attempted and abandoned a career in art in the 80's, this was truly mind blowing. I never thought I'd consume art. I thought I'd never deal with it again. Things change...; 1/17/12, 10:13 AM
Temujin said...: Kind of like education schools are now.; 1/17/12, 10:17 AM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: Peter Bagge said art school was "day care for 20-year olds".

Dan Clowes said art school was great for a single guy because, "your only competition (for girls) is geeks and homos galore".

http://fuckyeahdanielclowes.tumblr.com/post/484249836/art-school-confidential-daniel-clowes; 1/17/12, 10:35 AM
Henry said...: He watched graduate students size up the next field of applicants and followed attempt after futile attempt by undergrads to gain 24-hour access to campus buildings.

Man, I remember that hassle at my graduate institution 20 years ago. They wouldn't kick you out if you were working all night, but once the doors were locked around midnight you couldn't get in until seven or eight the next morning. We used to leave a ground-floor window unlocked in the print studio for access. I was once apprehended breaking into my own studio over winter break. I used the fact that I had a key to the studio to fudge the fact that I didn't have a key to the building.

Art school was more or less a waste of time, especially at the graduate level, but I made some good friends and learned a lot about art. I also wasn't paying today's inflated tuition.; 1/17/12, 10:38 AM
SGT Ted said...: Art school is just another way to harvest loan and grant money from students. It is all a money scam these days.; 1/17/12, 12:10 PM
Robert Cook said...: We are seeing a resurgence of traditional training in classical drawing and painting techniques, as this is what is being demanded by new generations of students. You'll see schools and programs of this type popping up everywhere.

I believe a solid training in the traditional skills is quite valuable, even essential, for most young art students, but I think that, once trained, each artist should find his or her own metier...simply replicating paintings in the academic style is a dead end and usually doesn't produce art, but taxidermy.; 1/17/12, 12:51 PM
Scott M said...: @RC

If the up and comers are demanding classical training, so much the better. It would be good to get "art" to start tacking toward things that don't yield what amount to drunken welding projects dotting municipal and state college landscapes all over the country.; 1/17/12, 12:56 PM
fivewheels said...: When I found the art school bars, that was a great time in my life. Hot alt/punk/goth faux rebel girls who were sick of being around non-traditionally masculine guys all day. Those thigh-high striped socks still make me smile.; 1/17/12, 1:10 PM
ricpic said...: At the Art Students' League, when I attended in the early '60s, it was quiet as a cloister in the painting from the model studios. Why? Because everyone there wanted to be there. It was the only school I ever attended that had that aura, a genuinely serious aura, and it was one of the great experiences of my life.; 1/17/12, 1:11 PM
Blue@9 said...: I believe a solid training in the traditional skills is quite valuable, even essential, for most young art students, but I think that, once trained, each artist should find his or her own metier...

This.

I simply do not understand why artists bother to graduate with a degree from art school. The same with writers and creative writing programs.; 1/17/12, 1:14 PM
Scott M said...: The same with writers and creative writing programs.

As a newly struggling writer myself, I can definitely see the worth of a few classes on the subject. You can always buy books on writing and consume them yourself, but anything done that way still passes through the same lens you, personally, view the world through. Getting outside takes on the subject matter can be invaluable.

Worth a degree though? Not so much.; 1/17/12, 1:22 PM
knox said...: Art School seems to me a way to extract money from most potential artists.

Agreed. In fact you could say that about many departments and careers.

"_________ School seems to me a way to extract money from most potential ___________."; 1/17/12, 2:36 PM
Jim in St Louis said...: SCAD The Savannah College of Art and Design is the largest private art college in the US. 10,461 students enrolled in 2010. (so sez wikipedia)

The campus is fully integrated with the historic district in Savannah and they have restored dozens of buildings for classrooms, labs, galleries,lecture halls etc.

So very cool to walk under the Spanish moss covered trees in the squares and see young, vibrant, creative, unique, 'artsy' students drawing, and sketching everywhere.

Not a nickel's worth of common sense in any one of them. But its beautiful- almost the greek ideal of academia.; 1/17/12, 2:39 PM
Scott M said...: But its beautiful- almost the greek ideal of academia.

Wouldn't the Greek ideal of Arete also have those same students wrestling, running, and practicing both their javelin tosses and their sword/shield work?; 1/17/12, 2:52 PM
Jim in St Louis said...: "practicing both their javelin tosses"
lol,
Yes of course, and they would be all young Greek men, mostly in the nude,(please God do not let Titus see that comment) but I was really commenting on the concept of learning, its something that many of us never got a chance to do- and I guess when I hear people say that diplomas are not worth the paper- It depends on my mood if I congratulate myself on not going- or is it sour grapes?

Can 'learning' be an emotion? That feeling of growth in the mind?; 1/17/12, 3:29 PM
Ah Pooh said...: Hope Jim in St. Louis comments more, really like the way he writes.; 1/17/12, 4:34 PM
Jose_K said...: Wouldn't the Greek ideal of Arete also have those same students wrestling, running, and practicing both .. in the nude and having gay sex with adults. ( Solon by Plutarch); 1/17/12, 5:59 PM
Jose_K said...: be all young Greek men, but in Sparta. Women were allowedin school until puberty.
And after that only in sports( topless); 1/17/12, 6:01 PM
Robert Cook said...: At the Art Students' League, when "I attended in the early '60s, it was quiet as a cloister in the painting from the model studios. Why? Because everyone there wanted to be there. It was the only school I ever attended that had that aura, a genuinely serious aura, and it was one of the great experiences of my life."

Although I haven't attended classes there in three years, it's still that way.; 1/18/12, 1:29 PM
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photography degrees; 4/28/12, 1:15 AM
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