[Tom Edgerton]

Kimber--

I think the problem is that you have conflicting goals. For whatever reason, you feel you need to graduate from a program with a state university degree. That's fine, but it probably will not ever provide you with the type of art experience and daily teaching that you want to further your artistic goals. So you have to decide which--the degree or the learning--you want to make your priority.

I don't mean to sound sanctimonious. I know that life is a series of very complicated choices. But my perspective on my own path, which mirrors yours, is this: I wish I had known what I needed when I was twenty.

I went through a state university art program from '70-'74, and it wasn't worth a nickel. I received next to no valuable teaching input or worthwhile art instruction of any kind, except for one life drawing class. If I had known at the time that what I was searching for was indeed available--but in the context of private ateliers, specialized art schools with a realist tradition such as the Art Students League or PAFA, and other such art-only programs--I would have gone for that. But I was a small-town Southern kid with no one around to point the way for me, and no knowledge of traditional art instruction and where to find it.

From my perspective now, I've come to a few conclusions:

1) To do what you describe, it is not necessary to have a university art degree. In a lot of related commercial art and graphic design fields, it isn't necessary either. I've been on the hiring end of things several times, and in such situations, I relied entirely on a person's job history and book, and never once asked or looked to see where they went to school. The work speaks for itself.

2) If you want to teach, you can teach. You don't need a university degree to do it, unless you want to teach in a public situation. But why would you? Your students will be taking art for a lot of reasons beside any real interest in it (as required electives, etc.) and you'll be trying to teach to a captive audience. I've done it, and being a crusader for better art instruction in public schools will eventually grind you down to a nub. Privately, I have a waiting list for students who really want to know what I know, and no one has ever asked me where I went to school in this case either. No art teacher I know of in town who teaches privately gets asked this; they attract students locally through word of mouth and reputation. Teaching privately is very gratifying.

If for some reason it's important for you to have a university degree--that it will satisfy something inside you that wants it--I completely understand and commend you for going for it. It takes a lot of grit. I don't minimize the time you've spent already toward that aim, God knows. But you are spending a ton of time and money to do so. If the low quality of what you are being exposed to is driving you bonkers and/or not meeting your needs, your time and money might be better spent in a situation that more closely reinforces your artistic goals, whether it results in some kind of "credential" or not.

I've lived through a number of artistic incarnations, both commercial and personal, and one conclusion I've come to here in middle age is that it really does matter how you spend every hour of your day, and life is too short to spend it in a way you can't stand.

With highest regards and admiration--TE