College classes nowadays
 

I am posting this as a complaint more than anything...

There is a state university 30 miles from my new home. It is known to be the farmer's college because it is mainly an agricultural college. They have rodeos as part of the curriculum. My husband is actually overseeing the building of the animal range science project - which includes a 30 million dollar treadmill for horses. It does however have fine arts as well. You can actually go there and get a 4-year BFA.

I recently met the main drawing/painting professor. I had seen some of her paitnings online and they were nice. I had seen others in person that were not very representational... Anyway - she has had her life drawing class going for short poses since August and has just moved them up to 20 minute drawings and is just now introducing color by way of colored pastel. She told me I could come by at any time to sit in and draw if I'd like. I popped in tonight and boy was I shocked. These were all seniors and fine art majors. Not ONE out of 12 could draw a single part of the anatomy that was anywhere near what it really looked like. It was so disappointing.

I stayed for 2 20-minute poses. It was so depressing to know these kids were going to graduate this spring. What kind of work can they actually get?

Anway - it's been awhile since I drew with pastel - had to dig out an old student box that had very few colors in it and none of them real skin tones.....as much as my short little drawing stinks - it was refreshing in a way. I am inspired to hire my models for some life sessions - for more than 20 minutes though! I'm telling you - the pressure I felt knowing it was only 20 minutes! My heart was beating fast...I had forgotten how that felt - to have to rush like that. I think this fella had a nose before I took the drawing home...

I can relate!! I have been taking classes through two colleges, the Cleve Institute and a local community college for over two years. Your experience is not unusual at all. I often ask myself if my time and money would be better spent hiring my own model. Generally my biggest complaint is the lighting - flourescent overhead classroom lighting, NO spotlights. So after this quarter is over I am going to hire by niece and her freshman girlfriends for portrait posing.

Sorry your experience was so disappoiting, but I do like your sketch!!

I'm sorry to hear of your disappointing experience at college. Unfortunately there is a strong tradition of non teaching that relates back to the mentality that teaching technique stifles creativity. This has been embedded in the minds of so many generations of artists that is just continues to proliferate in colleges and art schools everywhere.

I have students coming to my class, like desert nomads finally stumbling onto an oasis, who are so happy to finally learn that there is indeed a methodology. Far too many teachers think that just propping a student in front of a canvas with a brush in hand will allow one to become a painter.

It's really sad that so many potentially great artists are turned off and thwarted never to manifest their talents simply because they were never shown a logical, basic and fundimental way to approach painting. It doesn't have to be this way.

Sorry to hear it Kim. My painting teacher in college was HORRIBLE. His name was Marvin Mattle........ ha,ha just kidding. Different school entirely. My loss.

Our first thing was to copy a Master's painting and I stupidly chose Ingres's Princesse de Broglie. I did it in acrylic, but had not painted before with a brush, just an airbrush. I thought it looked ok for my first try. He pretty much told me to do it over after giving no help whatsoever. He tore apart everyone's work, even the good ones.

During the teacher's show in the gallery, his piece was a like a square ying-yang. The kids that took his class were pretty upset that this was the person "teaching" us. That must be why I can't paint today.

I decided to drop my painting class for this reason. I wasn't learning anything in there. The teacher thought I could do no wrong, and any advice he tried giving would not benefit me at all. Sigh. Hope you find something else, Kim.

Jimmie - You mean you dropped the class you are taking now? Didn't you feel that getting in front of a live model was time well spent - even if the instructor was no good? You better not stop the painting - your going to be extrememly good - you are so skilled & determined.

This class I attended was just as just a visitor - not for instruction. It was a way to get in front of a live person for awhile (for free). I knew when I saw this instructors work in person that she didnt have anything to offer me. She did try awfully hard to impress upon me that she was a professional artist with loads and loads of shows, not just a teacher....I don't know what that was all about, but it was uncomfortable. I did try to have a conversation with her, but she didn't let me get a word in. At least she didn't try to instruct me while I was sketching.

Good to stumble across this.
 

I'm currently back at university to finish my fine arts degree. I dropped my program the first time because I had a chance to study with a 'neo-classical' painter outside of the university and I had become disillusioned with university classes. I mean, gee, I sort of wanted an education to go along with that degree! By leaving school and becoming and apprentice, I got it.

But what I found is a lack of degree of any sort narrows professional opportunities (BFA's are highly regarded in the graphic design sector, where I work), so here I am again, back finishing up my last 5 classes to finish up (albeit at a different, and as far as I can tell, even worse school which would have been hard for me to imagine). How I'll make it through this next year without busting blood vessels in my temples is anyone's guess. Lucky for me it's an open syllabus with students having entirely free reign over assignments and subject matter.

But you should have seen the look of perplexity on my instructor's face when I informed him that the rows and columns of little squares on my raw-umber washed canvas was a neatly organized study of skin tones I was planning on using as reference material for my paintings of figures and portraits I would be doing in his class. He thought it was a 'really neat' painting and I might consider using it as one of my actual paintings for the class. Good grief. He also seemed to have a hard time understanding that I intended - intended the palette to actually follow what skin tones you might see in real life. That I didn't necessarily want my palette to 'push the edge' or whatever.

To be fair, his landscape paintings are gorgeous and I could actually learn a lot from him about color - if I actively tap him for info. He might have just been shocked that one of his students values technique and study and realism. I don't know. But -- is it normal for a university painting instructor to not know who Nelson Shanks is? Or Daniel E. Greene? Or is it me; do I simply live on another planet?

Wow, I just ranted a blue streak there. Sorry 'bout that. Just frustrated and I feel sorry for the kids in my class who obviously haven't been given a good art education because their teachers didn't want to 'stifle their creativity'. Grr. Me, I got lucky. I never realized that till now, never was properly thankful for it, either. In my case it was my high school art teacher who was a stickler for technique and he taught us tons.

Oh, and Cynthia, I'm really, really happy this forum exists. I learn something here every time I visit. In fact, I think I just figured out how I'm going to avoid busted blood vessels for the remainder of the time I'm at school - check in here often.

Thanks, and thanks again.

Dear Julie and Kim,

Unfortunately, I will tell you that university fine arts courses are EXACTLY as they were 30 years ago. Representational fine arts education is what you get outside the university setting.

That being said. no one has ever been ill-served by a four year degree. It's just not relevant to what we do here as painters. However, it is most certainly relevant to any number of publishers, editors, and some educational organizations (if you are thinking that teaching is part of what you will do).

Is it too late to pick up a minor in a useful, if unrelated, field? :)

Hi everyone, I moved this thread over to the Cafe as it seems more philosophical in its progress.

I think it's too late for me - I've only got a few more classes to get my paper. I think, if I had to do this all over again, at the very least, I'd do a lot more research. All art programs are not created equal and all that. But what I'd probably end up doing is get a degree in business/marketing/graphic arts (major/minor combination of some sort), taking as many elective fine arts classes as I could fit into my schedule. Then later, I'd take time off now and then and travel to take workshops through ateliers or artists I admire. Marketing and business - essential, I'm finding. Everyone here seems to be rather good at it and I don't think that's coincidental.

But it's interesting to know that things haven't changed in the last 30 years. Unfortunate, too. For now I'm just going to have to resign myself not to expect too much; I'll get a degree out of this regardless. But I already know a real art education is going to take the rest of my life.

Anyone out there had a good experience with university art classes? Any programs you'd recommend? If so, which universities, which instructors? Perhaps that info might be useful to people who are interested in pursuing BFAs and happen across this post.

As I think about this question, I certainly don't know of anything current. Nonetheless, perhaps it makes sense to have double major - fine arts, and something "practical". Although a university student is unlikely to get the fine art experience most of us have in mind, it still provides many hundreds of hours of life drawing experience. That is never wasted. Plus, it keeps one happy.

I was completely disappointed when I enrolled in college last fall. My drawing class was in a messy lab in the basement of the college, and the room was entirely lit with fluorescent overhead lighting. After each session the teacher would have us post up our art work and critique each other's work. However, we were told to only make positive comments... "Define critique for me?"
I hope to transfer to the Art Academy of Chicago in about a year, so hopefully things will get better!

Matthew

Just a suggestion Kim, since you obviously have so much more knowledge, and it seems to me the particular group of students you described here definitely can benefit from it. And, from my impression of your posts here on this forum, I assume you like sharing and coaching, why not try a lecturer post or the like there. Your husband can probably get you connected through the right channel.

A regular paycheck will more likely than not fuel your passion for more enjoyable work and less worry over practical issues. Not to mention avoiding headaches over how to please exceedingly difficult clients.

It's not this way all the time, but more often than not.

I got lucky (!) in finding Marvin just when I needed traditional guidance in technique. I didn't know how lucky then, but I do now. Not much has changed in BFA programs countrywide.

Besides putting what I'd learned into my own work with some degree of success, the most obvious way to thank Marvin and all those who've passed down what is, at least, a 600-year-old tradition, is to continue passing it down.

Although the bulk of my teaching is in Continuing Ed programs, I have "infiltrated" the BFA program at a New Hampshire art school. It's great, but I am teaching Illustration 1 (and 2 next semester). A great deal of what the students are now asking me have so much to do with traditional drawing and painting techniques. The curriculum being what it is, I don't have the proper time to really teach these things extensively. I'm doing what I can, but what would make better sense would be my teaching representational drawing and painting at the Foundation level, so those tools may be applied to the work in Illustration. But, there's a problem with that - and this is part of why things are still "that way," as Marvin puts it.

I will probably never be allowed to teach drawing or painting at the BFA level, because I do not have an MFA. My professional experience, my successes in teaching, my very ability to get solid results are nullified by my lack of a $30,000 piece of paper. It literally has nothing to do with art - it's the requirement as laid down by a Board of Directors that makes this so.

I'm not going back to school just to have this piece of paper. Were I to go back into the classroom, I would want to be under the direction of a real master, to make it worth my while. There are no MFA programs in this part of the country with that sort of faculty (are there anywhere?). In fact, the teachers in most MFA programs that I've researched are guilty of even more sloth than the lousy BFA teachers. "Sanctity of expression must be nurtured over the confinement of content.." so sayeth one vacuous blurb from an MFA brochure. I'm not about to give any money toward that.

So, tradition gets relegated to the Continuing Ed level. I don't care so much about salary or tenure or any of that stuff - I just want to get these kids while they're hungry for it. Some of them truly are, I've seen it. It's disappointing... but I'll keep the traditions alive wherever they stick me.

I've run into exactly the same thing. Academia respects only academic credentials. Gotta set aside some jobs for all those MFA grads who can't draw, I guess!

Possibility?
 

Rob and all...

I checked out the Art Renewal Center's recommendations on art schools and this one was on their 'approved' list: the Laguna College or Art and Design. Looks pretty good actually, and they're starting an MFA program I'm sorely tempted to check out...

I'm not sure the process by which the ARC 'approves' the schools and ateliers it does, but I've checked out some of the ones they do and I've been pretty impressed.

Julie-

I appreciate your effort in checking that out and posting the link. I'd say 90% of the schools/ateliers/classes posted at ARC are not only legit, but totally worthwhile. Yes, it's true, Laguna seems to be the only one with an MFA program. But, well - it's in Laguna Beach. I think I live as far from there as one can get within the contiguous 48 states. I have a wife and 2 kids who may not approve of such a choice of schools.

If you don't necessarily plan on teaching, don't go for any degree program. Water Street is incredible - I've visited there. The stuff they had thrown on the floor was better than anything I'd seen in a long time. The stuff hanging or in progress... amazing. Shanks' Incamminati would be heaven to me. Take a closer look at that site.

This has to be the most serendipitous thread I've come upon in a long time. I too am in college. I spent three years at a local community college which, by the grace of God, had a wonderful teacher who actually taught me a few things. The man did not rest. He went around to every easel over and over saying things like, "When one plane comes in front of another you've got to lower the key and feather the edge." "Where planes change direction you can get away with murder." "Lighter! Brighter!" "Stand back here and look at that monster you've created." Ok, that one hurt, but I'd much rather have heard that than what I'm hearing now at the university which is NOTHING!

I am frustrated to the point of tears most days. In fact, that's why a came on the board tonight hoping I could find someone to commiserate with. I'm taking "19th Century French Art and Culture" and just looking at David's and Ingres' work makes me want to explode. Oh, and Gericault's portraits of the insane and... Why can't I learn to do that? Why am I spending all this time and money? When I ask how to do something the answer I get now is, "Well... I could tell you how to do it, but then I would just be telling you how to do it. You've got to figure it out for yourself." GAWD! I can't take it. Especially when that phrase follows a fifteen minute discourse on how I keep having the same problems painting after painting.

I had one professor last semester in life drawing who when I asked him why don't they offer any classical training at the university he said, "Because none of the instructors know how to do it." I appreciate his honesty.

Anyway, I quit school semester before last in utter despair. But, after realizing how close I was to a degree and how much time, money and effort I'd already put into it I went back. (Besides, I really like art history class.) I graduate next year and I can't wait to actually have time to LEARN HOW TO PAINT!

Hopefully, I'll get into some workshops out at Scottsdale Artist's School. I tried to get into William Whitaker's class, but it was full. Maybe, next time.

That Laguna College looks really interesting. This thread may be even more serendipitous than I thought!

I quit school 6 years ago with 8 classes to finish my BFA. Mostlly because I was disgusted by the lack of teaching you describe so well. Big BIG mistake. Last year when I applied for this really cool job I wanted I got a reply from the HR person which had a message from the hiring supervisor that no doubt they wish they'd deleted before sending to me - that I was automatically disqualified because I had no degree. Interesting experience and such, but a no go. Ouch. It made me wonder how many other times my resume ended up in the can without so much as a second glance. And it made me want to fix that lack of a degree. Bad.

Now I'm finishing up too, Kimber, and all I can say is, good for you for gritting your teeth and just going for it. I've got this semester, a summer course online and a few courses next semester and I'll be done with it. Only problem is, I'm trying to finish up in another state, going to another university, by transferring all of my credits down to my original school. I'm going to have to take my final BFA Special Topics seminar long distance and I'm still not sure how that's even going to work. But I'll get it done somehow.

I think if I had to do this all over again I'd get a degree in marketing or some such, taking as many elective art credits as my schedule would allow, then I'd go to a good school once I had my degree (and a good job....)

Good luck in school, pretty soon you'll be looking back on this and laughing. :D

I don't know if I'll be laughing, but I know I need to finish. I'm not sure why, but I do. I don't want a "real" job, I just want to paint. (As I sit here sore and tired after painting on a 9' x 33' mural all day, wondering how I have the gall to seperate painting from a "real" job.) Anyway, it's funny, I get this little audience when I'm painting and you'd be surprised at how many of them want to know where I got my degree! We're all brainwashed.

Good luck to you!

Sounds like a great idea. The marketing will help you become a successful artist far more than yet another philosopical/policital/theoretical discourse from an art professor who doesn't know how to draw or paint.

I took a summer drawing course at the Pasadena Art Center. I was really excited until the classes started. I didn't learn anything at all!!! They didn't teach, just sit and draw. At the end of the class, when were graded, the instructor noted I might enjoy a graphics class. :!

I think with art instruction these days there's a real situation of "let the buyer beware". One has to really do a lot of research before spending money -- and valuable time -- on any art class.

Class update
 

I thought I should give a little bit of an update on my painting class...not because it's of relevance to anyone here, really, but I like to be fair, especially when I've vented out of frustration maybe prematurely.

In short, it's going well. Better than I'd hoped for. I had a heart-to-heart with my prof and showed him my work, where I wanted to go with it and who I really admire. I was surprised to find enthusiasm from him and a real sense of...excitement? maybe...that I was interested in learning and practicing technique as a realist. He's given lots of good lectures on perspective and light - technical stuff that's just great - and he gives thoughtful feedback on my work. I'm happy to say that I'm learning some good stuff.

Again, not that my travails and triumphs are showstopping, but I derided his class publicly in a vent session obviously prematurely and so thought it might be good to give a followup, especially since it's been going well ever since. Thanks.