Quote:
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Originally Posted by Marvin Mattelson
It doesn't have to be this way.
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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.