Art School experiences (Skilled vs unskilled art)

hobbyhorse wrote: This forum comes close but we all have other things that grab our time...BTW How's the remodeling coming Dave? ; )

Never ending, Lori. But it's still going well, thanks.
Hoping to finish up the kitchen here soon, and get back to the bath I was working on. My hand was forced when a water leak in the dish-washer soaked the kitchen flooring recently. So ended up pulling the whole floor up, as well as ripping out all the cabinets after some staining issues. ... But actually didn't mind, sometimes it's easier just to start from scratch.

How's the wood carvings going? Hopefully you're staying busy with orders. Be nice to see some new works. Oh, and before I forget, (and if you haven't done so yet) you should put your website up in the for sale section here. I'm sure others would like to peruse your works.

I attended art college for three years and then university for a further three. By the sounds of it I was very fortunate to have the tutors and lecturers that I did. They were very supportive in my use of sci fi and fantasy to underpin the formation of principles in a great deal of my work.
The only time I came up against any negative opinions was during college when I told my art history tutor I intended to submit a paper on three fantasy artists discussing their influences and their position in the fine art world.
During the six years of study all my lecturers were very supportive in my wish to study the fundamentals of image making and even when studying interior architecture at university the development of a personal style and approach to both illustration and indeed design was actively encouraged.
Perhaps my greatest disappointment was when I entered the professional market and was told that my imdividualism was not helpfull. At that point I was turning out 3 or 4 traditional 'brown' pub schemes a day.
I believe certainly by unI level if not before the student should really be pushing his/her education in the direction that is most important to the individual and using the educational environment to support that development and offer technical advice (but then I was 21 when I started uni so I probably found it easier to challenge my tutors than most)

Dave- sorry about not replying sooner ....That's TERRIBLE news. But it sounds like you were eventually going to get to the kitchen anyway, just not in that order. Have been carving and will start a WIP thread here sometime. Have been working on restoring an old window and hope to have it and the window frame done and installed before the weather changes. As far as the posting of my web site, I think I may have to let it go. Just don't have the funds to renew the hosting package. I will miss not having a remote portfolio I can send people to but haven't gotten much work from it and haven't had the funds to have it updated( I don't do the updating myself)
I may have enough skill now to do it myself but haven't a clue as to where would be a good ( and inexpensive )place to put it. Welcome any suggestions and what others have found worked for them.

Sorry to hear that, Lori. Never had a website myself, so don't know anything about them. But would think someone here should be able to assist you with some info.? I'm pretty sure I read threads on the old IFX forum with discussion about cheaper alternatives when it came to websites and such. But can see where using it to show your work as you say, would be quite convenient.

Good luck with restoring the window. I always prefer to restore over replacing, though it can sometimes be a pain to get them back in shape. It's always worth it. Also look forward to seeing your wood working wips.

I have a Swedish website provider and a website I never update so I can't really give any good advice on that part, but depending on your needs you can always consider using your profile page here - all images you've uploaded to the gallery will show there, and you can put info about what kinds of commissions you do and such, in the bio section. If you have suggestions for how the profile pages could be further enhanced for this use, just let Banj know through the suggestion box section. (Can't promise of course but he might be able to add requested bits of stuff... I think...)

Good idea, Charlotte.

And maybe dropping in a biscuit along with your suggestion, might help persuade Banj some.

Thanks Charlotte that might be a good alternative. Don't know what suggestions to ask Banj for but that will give me something to think on.

Dave- I also like to keep old wood windows...they have already lasted for 140 years with very little care given them. So with some proper restoration they should last at least another 140 years. After I removed all the layers of poorly applied paint they are in remarkable good condition.

Yep, and the old adage, 'they don't make them like they used to' sometimes comes into play with woods too. I just find the older stuff to usually be of better quality, and it's hard to find wood of the same or better quality sometimes. And if you do, you definitely pay for it nowadays.

But yes, poorly applied paints are usually the culprit that I have dealt with in the remodeling. That and bad staining jobs. Both can work ya a lot harder then it should be, but the end result is worth it. Very cool, they are already 140 years old too.

Coming to this discussion a little late, because broken computer and summer and business and school strike and and and and....

OK, got that off my chest! Ha ha

I attended art school for 3 years, but did 2 years of the program. They had what they called an outreach program and sent instructors up to the northern town I lived in to teach on weekends, and it took 2 years to complete the first year. These two years were FANTASTIC! We would do one course at a time, full two days on the weekends of instruction, evening remote lecture for art history a couple of times a week and the week to finish our assignments. So I worked mornings, did my assignments in the afternoons. It was ideal. And most of those two years was worked around the fundamentals. I loved it and wanted to get more indepth training at the main school, so I enrolled in the second year program.

This is where I found out that the teachers that they had sent up to us, weren't the teachers at the school. Not all of them, but some of them were the studio assistants. The ones that help the students with the technical aspects of what they want to do. So that's what they taught. One of the teachers (a sculptor) was a working sculptor but not a teacher at the school. I guess he did it for some bucks, but he was amazing! I learned so much from him.

The teachers at the school were what I found out was the archtypical terrible art school experience. You could put everything you had into making a piece, but if you didn't have some bullshit to surround it with, you would get a crappy mark. It was all about the concept, not the skills. So I went with it and tried to improve my skills on my own while also fulfilling the concept portion of the requirements.

For example, we had a final project for our 3d class that was assigned at the beginning of the semester. It had to have a container and something in the container. I built a treasure chest out of mahogany. I sanded and polished it with tung oil until it glistened, it was outfitted with brass corners, nails, hasps, hinges. I collected chestnuts, and germinated a bunch on my windowsill starting in the fall. By spring one had sprouted, hurrah! So my piece was a treasure chest that when you unlocked it had a growing tree coming out of a bunch of dried up chestnut seeds. I thought it spoke for itself.

My roommate did NOTHING all year on the project. The night before, she grabbed a bedsheet, wrapped some stuff in it and tied it to a broomstick hobo style. Then she proceeded to bullshit about how each thing in the sheet represented her trying to escape her life and start new.

I got a C, she got an A. :angry: I didn't return for 3rd year.

Reminds me of the saying that we should learn for life, not for school. I bet that concept of hers didn't help her much in the long run, while you actually improved your technique. But it sucks when teachers can't see that.

I just read the rather brief (3 pages but I didn't feel it actually said much - and besides there were loads of images) article on "the tortured artist" in IFX issue 113 (Method in their madness?). I feel that's also a bit related - I bet if someone gives bullshit good grades they'd also be impressed if the concept seemed rather mad. It wasn't art school but back in secondary school (I think I mentioned this teacher before) I had an art teacher who proudly implied he wasn't entirely sane and that in turn implied that he was "artistic"... Me, I just thought he was rather pathetic. And a bit creepy. (Oh and I drew a troll once and he thought it was a portrait of him. "Luckily" he seemed very pleased... Maybe he wasn't entirely sane, after all...)