What Art School Can Teach You
If you are reading this and are over the age of 18, you quite possibly are in college or went to a conservatory of some kind. If you did, how was that experience? Good? Bad? Somewhere in between? You aren’t alone. I am a 4th-year student at the School of Visual Arts with a major in Photography and Video, and going to school for my passion, was honestly not one of the best career moves I could have made. The opportunity though has helped me reach new heights with my art-making and made me a more eloquent speaker on art and my own work, However, I have learned a lot of valuable things during my time here. However, this is my own personal experience, so take what you want from this.
Let’s backtrack to me at 17, I was living in North Carolina, and unsure what I wanted to do after graduation aside from college. I knew that loving photography was my passion and every aspect of it interested me. Whether it was reaching out to clients, picking up clothing for the shoot, editing, sending files, you learn to love it all. Making a great leap in photography is tough as is and moving to NYC is a whole other challenge. With a small savings account, I couldn’t just move up there, so I felt I should look at art schools. Fast forward a few months, and I had figured out what school I had gotten into and started weighing my options. In the end, I decided art school was the path I wanted to go down to further my career and sharpen my skills.
Fine art takes time to understand and learn. There is no way around that and it can be a hard task for more technical artists, like myself. Once you learn it though, the doors open wider than before. For me, it has been very formal in its ways of teaching with fine art being the superior form of all art. Art school has taught me how to eloquently talk about art and it’s meaning and how it relates to the cultural zeitgeist of today. Talking about art, it helps you understand with what may be going on in the latest editorial by Gucci or the latest campaign by Widen Kennedy. With an understanding of art, one may learn what certain techniques may mean and how they are effective versus how they are not in the modern art world.
Learn to talk about art, it helps you learn about the world.
Another thing to learn is that it is important to network with your peers. People are at all different levels when coming to school and throughout your time there. Get to know the people around you work and style interests you most and interact with them. With meeting people you may get to work with them on a project that may be an editorial on some big publication to have your name in. Getting to know the people around you makes you more open to the people around you and what is going on.
Learn from your peers, they are in the same boat as you.
Art school can be a lot emotionally, but it can make you a better person as a whole. It has made me learn about why an artist creates and what purpose it holds. With art, it’s political, all of it is whether you like it or not. With being artists, it is our job to create work that speaks to the world and what we all believe in. Artists have changed the world for generations and will continue to for generations to come. With going to art school, you learn more about what art means to you and how it holds its place in the world. Some people want to know what their art means to the world and the certain connotations that it may hold, some do not. In the end, it is your decision to find that out for yourself.