Art School vs Practical Experience

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gilles Mansillon on May 8, 2008 at 9:33

hello max, i trust you are well. to me art schoool provided me with valuable tranning (as well as much fun and social contacts), but it also took me seven years to forget all of that in order to create artworks that was unique and original :)

Permalink Reply by Mik Godley on May 8, 2008 at 9:50

Anecdotally speaking - from what I can tell, most people who work in art-schools seem primarily concerned with either:

a) aspects and perspectives of politics - the government and/or management interference and the changes forced on their jobs, or

b) trying to maintain some sort of (ANY sort of) practice and research in the face of ever diminishing pay, support, resources and - critically for many - TIME, as the "day-job" admin and government/management demands make continuing any significant and meaningful professional practice pretty hopeless for many.

If there are any ivory towers left, I'd love to see them, and I know preparing students for "the real world" has been an issue for atleast 30 years, but it's probably too late to expect imploding colleges to address that right now. You're lucky the art-schools can teach as much as they can.

I suggest that such professional issues are more the job of the professionals that young artists begin the rub shoulders with. Art-schools are nearly finished, killed-off by governments and managements, however amazing they tell the world they are.

Still, they're all we've got, and I love 'em - delicate flowers indeed.

Permalink Reply by mike hinc on May 8, 2008 at 10:02

Delicate but very sickly, Mik - and in danger of dying. May I fly in the face of 30 years of government policy and suggest that art schools should be for the teaching of art. The real world greets us all soon enough. The better versed in the practice of art that students are, the better they'll be able to find their own solutions in the real world. Apart from that small gripe, I can only echo you laments.

Permalink Reply by Mik Godley on May 8, 2008 at 10:13

I think there are still good people "on the shop floor" in art-schools who try their best for the students, but it's a losing battle.

The powers that be are certainly making it nearly impossible for artists to continue working in art-schools, and when the last artist stops teaching, the colleges will become a professional irrelevance - divorced by policies, taught only by "teachers" - valuable to an extent, but rarely sufficiently immersed in the professional world to impart more than old-time basics.

Permalink Reply by mike hinc on May 8, 2008 at 17:09

Yes good people indeed but all those I know are overwhelmed with administration. They no longer have the time to make their own art. Worse yet, skills are being lost as older teachers either retire or just give up. Wages suck, short term contracts are commonplace and they are so busy filling in forms they don't even have the time or energy or wherewithal to actually teach art. And this makes them feel guilty and sick with themselves. Who in their right mind, at the start of their career would choose to teach art? They should be sainted or committed or both!

Permalink Reply by Mik Godley on May 8, 2008 at 19:36

Well, there are different models around the world. Today I've been reading about the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China.

See: -
http://www.aapmag.com/58thepoint.html

Very good at dealing with the market, as I think we've all become very aware in recent years.

Permalink Reply by Kane Cunningham on May 30, 2008 at 8:18

Hi Max

I remember me and Mik Godley asking our tutors to teach skills back in 1980. We wanted to be able to paint with some technical understanding of the mediums we were using.In frustration we both went to the life room to teach ourselves how to draw, we wanted technical skills. These skills over the years have enabled us both to achieve a degree of creative success. Now as a lecturer I ensure all my students understand about perspective, measuring, composition, mixing paints etc. These skills are coupled with theory and critical contexts for contemporary practice. So I feel confident my students graduate fully or at least better prepared than most students for the real world.
Kane