Beef Beany
03-28-2006, 12:59 AM
I'm close to being a senior at Clemson University, having studied visual arts for nearly three years at a college that's known for its engineering and computer science departments. I've had to take mandatory studio courses in printmaking, sculpture, photography, and ceramics. All I wanted to do, from the very beginning, was master the techniques of drawing and painting. My college has taught me maybe 5% of everything I know while I hemorrhage around $8,000 a semester. The rest of it, I've learned on my own, in between suffering through studios which I strongly perceive as unnecessary, though I am hoping one of you will convince me otherwise.
Every time I am forced to take a class where I throw pots, bowls, and vases out of clay, or I'm cutting and welding steel, a little part of me on the inside really wants to die. Seriously, I've been close to breaking down and crying because I wonder what I've done with my life and where all this money is going. Even if I could find it in my heart to care about these courses, it's still a waste. Any one of these professions takes years to hone to the point of becoming a master craftsman. If, after graduation, I ever got a job as a designer in computer graphics, I hardly think the surface knowledge of techniques creating a steel sculpture will help me. So, why am I dirty as hell, holding this 4,000 degree torch, and slicing through this steel or doing a bronze casting?
This semester, I finally got to take my first painting class class, but not even that is providing any relief. My teacher is questionable at best; the last project we did was a combination of collage and painting self-portraits from a photograph with a grid overlayed. You heard me right. We painted from a fricking photograph, using a fricking GRID - pretty much the #1 thing you DON'T want to do if you want to learn how to be a real artist. I feel like he should be teaching what I am reading from Andrew Loomis, not forcing us to create this quirky pop art when we are students.
Do you feel like all the art disciplines are truly intertwined as my faculty believes, or is my time being wasted?
I heard that at most colleges, if you want to paint, then by God, they have you paint like a mofo. Your curriculum is PAINTING. They gorge you with information on how to hone your mind's eye to be the best damn renderer you can be. They mostly do not spread you so thinly as they do here at Clemson, where advanced drawing, advanced painting, senior studio may be the only truly productive course I ever take (and ironically, the ones with the least direction, where I'll be able to do pretty much whatever I want).
On that note, I would never have considered schools like FullSail or even Digipen. I've known people who came from those schools and found success in the entertainment industry, but I tend to believe such complete and utter specialization is just as bad as what I'm enduring now. What does a Fullsail grad do if he or she decides the entertainment industry is too bollocks to work in anymore? In my case, I guess I could at least be a hippy as an alternative with MY degree. ;)
Every time I am forced to take a class where I throw pots, bowls, and vases out of clay, or I'm cutting and welding steel, a little part of me on the inside really wants to die. Seriously, I've been close to breaking down and crying because I wonder what I've done with my life and where all this money is going. Even if I could find it in my heart to care about these courses, it's still a waste. Any one of these professions takes years to hone to the point of becoming a master craftsman. If, after graduation, I ever got a job as a designer in computer graphics, I hardly think the surface knowledge of techniques creating a steel sculpture will help me. So, why am I dirty as hell, holding this 4,000 degree torch, and slicing through this steel or doing a bronze casting?
This semester, I finally got to take my first painting class class, but not even that is providing any relief. My teacher is questionable at best; the last project we did was a combination of collage and painting self-portraits from a photograph with a grid overlayed. You heard me right. We painted from a fricking photograph, using a fricking GRID - pretty much the #1 thing you DON'T want to do if you want to learn how to be a real artist. I feel like he should be teaching what I am reading from Andrew Loomis, not forcing us to create this quirky pop art when we are students.
Do you feel like all the art disciplines are truly intertwined as my faculty believes, or is my time being wasted?
I heard that at most colleges, if you want to paint, then by God, they have you paint like a mofo. Your curriculum is PAINTING. They gorge you with information on how to hone your mind's eye to be the best damn renderer you can be. They mostly do not spread you so thinly as they do here at Clemson, where advanced drawing, advanced painting, senior studio may be the only truly productive course I ever take (and ironically, the ones with the least direction, where I'll be able to do pretty much whatever I want).
On that note, I would never have considered schools like FullSail or even Digipen. I've known people who came from those schools and found success in the entertainment industry, but I tend to believe such complete and utter specialization is just as bad as what I'm enduring now. What does a Fullsail grad do if he or she decides the entertainment industry is too bollocks to work in anymore? In my case, I guess I could at least be a hippy as an alternative with MY degree. ;)