I made this comic solely to explain how the interview went, so please ignore how ugly it looks. This was easier than trying to just write it down for me.
I am a very emotional person especially when Iâm nervous, so this event hit me quite hard.
More news soon.
Oh honey. Oh god. Iâm so sorry. Â Okay. This is not a school you want to associate with. These are bad people. They are not better than you. I donât care how prestigious they think or say they are. Going there would have been a waste of your time, because you are so much better than anything they could offer you and they do not have a fucking clue what they are talking about. Trust me. I struggled through a college full of people just like that, and got nothing out of it but wasted time and resentment. All they did was tell me I was phony and a failure for wanting to actually learn how to draw and paint, and that is all kinds of backwards. All that self-important grandiose bullshit about illustration and technical skill not being âartâ is just hiding the fact that they canât paint or draw for shit. They live in an echo-chamber, and they only worship the absolute newest trends in the handful of areas of modern art they deem worthy, to the exclusion of all else. That is NOT art, that is elitism and egotism, pure and simple, and that sure as hell does not help the students. They are NOT better than you. Your beautiful artwork and expressiveness and illustrative style are powerful and important – everyoneâs is. Saying someoneâs work is ânot artâ and therefore not important is not a critique. Itâs an asshole thing to say, and offers absolutely nothing of importance or value for potential students.
Now, that isnât to say there is no value in modern and post modern and abstract expressionist etc. art – on the contrary. The more inclusive you can be in your influences, and the more you can look at and study, the better. (Branching out is always a healthy thing to do!) But if thatâs ALL a school has to offer, if an art school tries to tell you that technical skill and illustration are invalid or unimportant, if they try to tell you that Rembrandt and Van Gogh arenât worth looking at or studying because they are dead, if they dismiss artists they donât approve of as âkids who like to scribble,â if they tell you that you donât have a place there unless you conform exactly to what they want, then you need to avoid that place like the plague, because they are not there to help you, they are not there to teach you, Â they are there to find people who can make the school look even more self-important than it already is.Â
Sorry for the rant. XD Iâm still havenât quite gotten over how crappy my art college experience was. (For those interested, the crap school in question was Sacramento State University. After I left, I attended a handful of classes and workshops at the Academy of Art University in SF and Watts Atelier in Encinitas, CA ,which helped me SO much more, as the teachers were interested in actually helping students learn the skills that art schools are supposed to teach you. You know, painting and drawing and inking and sculpting and all that good stuff.)Â
Uh, so yeah. >_> Basically look for schools with a good technical program that stresses life drawing, painting, drawing. Art is one of the few careers where people care about your portfolio more than where you got your degree (unless youâre gearing up to work for a Pixar or Dreamworks or something, in which case it does help). So find a place that will help you be the best you can be, and donât worry about how prestigious or fancy they think they are. <3Â
Echoing Julieâs remarks here. I spent my college years at an institution like the one in the comic that valued ~soul expression~ and AbEx over developing technical skills. At the time, I thought it was all peaches, because I was (and still am) super into making and observing AbEx art. Fortunately, I was required to take classes in Photoshop and Illustratorâ without those, I would not have gotten a job after college.I graduated without having learned ANYTHING about drawing, about color theory, about perspective or line weight or form. At thirt*coughcough* Iâm still drawing like a high school kid and trying to make up for the damage of those wasted years.
Fuck âreal artâ, fuck âhigh artâ, fuck âlow artâ. Learn, develop, grow, evolve, create.I donât often reblog stuff, but this comic and the commentary are incredibly important.
A lot of people ask me about college, expressing fear and nerves about whether or not theyâre âgood enoughâ or doing âthe right artâ to get in/do well. Fuck that, kids.
Find a school that will help you grow, no matter what art you do. Be open to criticism, yes, but if the school youâre talking to talks down to you or says that what youâre doing isnât ~*~*~*âREALâ~*~*~ art, tell âem to fuck right off and walk the fuck outta there. That attitude is wrong. THEY are wrong.
You deserve to have an environment that nurtures your art and your skills and offers classes that will help you the very most that they can. Nothing will hurt you/your art more than cutting off the corners of your square peg to fit into a round hole.
/raises fist in solidarity
/extends middle finger at art elitist assholes
My art school experience was about 50/50. I was expressly and openly all about “I want to be able to make money after graduation” when it came to my art, and while I did butt heads with people like this, particularly in traditional media courses, there were also professors who gave me my space, even if they didn’t totally understand. My school didn’t have a cartooning or sequential art program at all, so I carved out a little space for myself within the Art & Technology concentration, and I made it work for me.
