Askexperts–If your son is doing pre-college at Ringling I’m sure he’ll be doing figure drawing there.
My D attended and it was a super experience. Definitely received much instruction in figure drawing while there for pre-college (it was very new to her at the time).
The pre-college summer programs are great for gaining experience in what it’s like to be an art major. It was the first time my D was around so many excellent artists. It confirmed that a BFA was what she wanted to pursue. Plus, she made some great pieces for her portfolio.
I’m glad your daughter is liking conceptual art. Art schools seem to like it because it can be academically easy to teach.
And in the discussions I see that seems a constant: students who like the highly academic love conceptual art. But in art (as in music) there’s often a very serious disconnect between academic success and a career. The ivory tower risk of academia is a serious problem in art.
I’d suggest you start a gentle conversation with her about that. Truth is, most art students don’t pursue a career in art (fine or commercial) from what I’m able to determine.
I think that fed our surprise. We are quite opposed to conceptual as a foundation for education because we know from experience conceptual art is poor preparation if one wants a successful career as an artist - it is a very, very tough road. This weakness is so incredibly obvious to us it’s mystifying that academia is so clueless about the damage they’re doing. (This is not to say that someone with an art degree from a school of that type can’t break from their training and succeed well… only that there’s not a direct connection from a conceptual foundation and success…)
In fact, the lack of students with broader training has certainly hurt the advertising biz as we don’t find art school grads who understand how beauty and positivity are compelling for people. Instead, they intellectualize everything and that makes bad ads that fail to draw people in. (Yes, it’s part of the reason modern ads can be so infuriating to ordinary people.)
I’ll offer merely that thought and wish both you, and her, best of luck.
@atlascentaur My daughter is pursuing art in a different way–unrelated to the business world. She is not at all interested in advertising or graphic arts. She graduated with her BFA in studio art from NYU last May (with a concentration in sculpture.)
She is currently pursuing her MA in art education and plans to teach in NYC beginning in the fall. She is attending a one year program at NYU leading to initial teacher certification and was granted a nice scholarship.
At the same time, she is producing more art, networking and hoping to get gallery representation in the future. Her former professors frequently show in NYC galleries, and she has collaborated on projects with them and has had work shown in galleries while still a student.
She has always wanted to teach. Her passion for art (and intertwining the two) actually came later. So she doesn’t consider teaching a survival job, but something she always planned to pursue. Obviously I am relieved that she will have a real paying job down the road.
I think her ultimate plan in life is to get gallery representation and go back to school for her MFA in another 5 years or so. She would love to pursue her MFA at Yale in sculpture, but would obviously will also consider p/t programs in NYC or low-residency programs where she can take primarily summer classes. One of her professors did that through Bard.
With her MFA, she would love to become a university professor someday.
So, as you can see, there are many ways to navigate the art world. Many paths ARE academic in nature and don’t have anything to do with graphic arts/ advertising or animation/ film-making.
We have an apartment in Chelsea and are surrounded by contemporary art galleries. Although it’s a tough path, D would love to be able to have her work represented there someday while continuing to teach.
PS–D has several friends who went to art school for graphic design. But they chose schools that were strong in that particular concentration. I don’t think that a conceptual school is failing to meet your child’s needs and should in anyway change their philosophy and teaching emphasis to be better suited for business models. It just seems that your son (and the others who left) picked the wrong school for their particular path.
@uskoolfish Sounds like she’s found her path. Excellent and congrats!
What’s been funny in the many conversations I’ve had about this is that criticizing conceptual art leads people to instantly believe there’s only one alternative - commercial art. The world of art is far richer - and the limitation imposed on art by the academics are a problem for students and for society.
Conceptual art is a merely one slice of art. There are far more ways to achieve far more success and without moving to commercial arts.
As I write that I remember the nearly “moral” comments I hear about commercial arts often from academics - like “settling” for commercial art is a compromise. Except I work with a commercial artist who designs game characters. And one of his students created the IronMan suit drawings for the movies. What an amazingly interesting career they both have.
@gouf78 Thanks for the info. My son has signed up 3-D animation and Drawing for animation at Ringling. Hopefully it will cover what my son needs for his portfolio.
@atlascentaur at #289 you said;
“They have a first year program that’s hated by a great many students. I’d suggest you grill them about the first year. It’s not documented on their website. My son’s experience was that it was very tough for a digital arts guy - and that the people with heavy drawing, painting, and/or sculpture did best. Kids also did well by doing performance art in class.”
Pretty much all foundation programs (certainly all the ones of the schools we’ve looked into) include heavy doses of 2D and 3D work. That’s pretty standard. At least a full year of drawing (more if you major in animation), a full year of design/ light and color theory, and a full year of 3D using different elements. My daughter is also a digital arts kid, and she used digital media for her time-based (4D) studio, but the others included a lot of sketches, a lot of color mixing and experimentation (adding and subtracting pigments, etc.), and many different interesting sculptured works. That’s kind of how foundation unfolds.
If that’s not for you as a student, or if you were looking just to increase your skill level using a limited set of tools, then the BFA program is probably not what you are looking for.
Also, while successful application of one’s art or design ideas are crucial for success, a better understanding of what it is one is applying can only help make one a more talented creative. Art/design school is fundamentally about learning how you can tell your story effectively and/or how you can solve the problem in front of you. Both require a high level of intellectual and conceptual processes because sometimes the answer - or the path to get there - is just not obvious. Whether the school is interested more in focusing on or exploring in detail that process, or is interested primarily in the resulting work, conceptualizing happens in both cases. The difference between art/design school and just hitting the professional circuit w/o the formal training may be perhaps the level the awareness of how much you are engaged in that process. One might be very successful w/o giving it much thought; however, the investment in the BFA is precisely to allow one to break out a bit, change up the concept, maybe tweak the process, and so forth. In other words, the purpose is to get you out of your comfort zone so that you can ultimately produce higher quality work.
If focusing more on concepts and process isn’t your thing - if to you it’s just navel gazing - then the BFA program probably isn’t for you.
@JBStillFlying The SAIC First Year program dismisses 2d and 3d with an overt emphasis that “art has moved beyond these mundane things”. That’s where it goes off the rails into silliness…
Essentially, rejecting quality making in favor of time based art…
Given your final thought about “BFA not for you”… I’ve come to the conclusion that if you want a great career in art, then art school is probably the wrong place to start. Unfortunately, there are few others.
And that’s the quandary we present our high school graduates - the invitation to go deeply in debt for an education unrelated to success. (The problem, incidentally, is not just in art. It’s a very serious failing of higher ed at this point - the ivory tower is at an extreme in most fields.)
@atlascentaur . . .and yet the kids with drawing, painting and sculpting skills tend to do the best . . . in what? Time based art? Unfortunately in your zeal to pan SAIC you are contradicting yourself.
But here are some thoughts for you:
Art school has two benefits. 1) Training. You make art/design projects all day every day. No better way to prepare for a creative career. 2) Connections. Career services is geared toward placing artists and designers, alums interview on campus, there are jobs fairs and internship fairs, industry connections, connections through your profs, and so on.
(I’d also say 3) Reputation but that is, for the most part, connected pretty strongly to the other two. Plus, a student’s success depends so heavily upon the other two factors, REGARDLESS of where he/she goes. However, perhaps reputation DOES factor in separately, at least to some extent, if the program is uber selective in terms of admissions: CalArts Character Animation, or RISD, for instance. In that case your acceptance can still be a strong favorable signal to potential employers, even if you underperform and/or don’t bother hustling to form some professional relationships while there).
Anyway, the time and money invested in any particular BFA program will only be worth it if you believe A) that you need to spend those resources to get 1) and 2) and B) you believe that there is sufficient positive benefit over the course of your professional life to doing so. By this I mean that going to THIS particular college and getting THAT specific degree is expected to have the highest reward. Obviously the reward doesn’t have to be pecuniary - or it may be indirectly in that it leads to other, high payout situations later on. Or . . . it may be strictly about money. Or it may be about personal satisfaction doing what you love doing. Whatever that benefit might be. It’s going to be a personal decision. One school isn’t right - or wrong - for everyone. Neither is one path.
If you don’t believe that spending the time and resources will have some positive payoff, it’s not worth it to part with those resources. Save them for another purpose.
Higher ed in general is, indeed, having some challenges at the moment. However, being able to graduate from a looney-tunes college with an outstanding history of placing it’s graduates in places of influence - be it industry, the academy, or gov’t - might STILL make it worthwhile to attend if invited to. And you just might learn something along the way. Probably not a good idea to dismiss all of academia just yet 
At the end of the day, it really comes down to the particular opportunities you have and what you might be able to do with them.
@ArtAngst Thanks for the info. Yes my son is taking art class in high school. AP drawing class next year. I want him to start figure drawing class now because I am afraid it might be a bit too late when his senior starts in August.
@JBStillFlying Won’t reply to it all - lots there. Somewhere earlier in this very long thread I noted the values of art school and think it’s valuable. The mistake I see in this thread is to confuse succeeding within art school academically with becoming a successful artist. What’s missing in art schools is much of the learning needed to make art - not merely make meaning.
Yes, SAIC is a bit confusing. But the work on their walls (2d, 3d) IS really poor. We should have paid attention to that. I think what happened in my son’s case is that he came from a digital art background. In class it was clear that digital work was dismissed summarily.
My hunch is it’s the problem that the digital process of creating art is far, far different from the processes they emphasized. The instructors didn’t respect that (or know it) and lacked the insight and skills to deal with this far more complicated problem (meeting their expectations with digital). This was made worse by SAIC’s well publicized emphasis on critique - which turned a bunch of 19 yo amateurs in the medium loose on digital work to criticize it. Bad idea.
You and I will never scope out the entire issue. My posting hope is that parents develop an appropriate skepticism in approaching art schools - demand that the schools reveal their background assumptions. And that parents see there’s far more to art than this narrow art taught by the likes of SAIC. There’s plenty of documentation of the reality that art schools, specifically, don’t typically reveal their prejudices.
Cheers…
Sorry if it’s already been discussed, but does anyone have a solid idea of when Pratt will come out? Back in January, I was told that decisions would be mailed out in the second week of March. But, frustratingly enough, the deadline was moved back to March 4th (presumably pushing back decisions’ release), and the website gives a vague “before April 1st”.
After the flurry of college decisions that came out in late February + early March, the current silence is deafening. I’m getting more neurotic every day that goes by
@atlascentaur - any art/design school that dismisses the digital medium is making a huge mistake and is anything but forward looking. Your point there is well-taken. Foundation year tends not to be digitally-heavy. However, a school might offer a solid and rigorous foundation program that covers theory as well as application, and still have integrated digital technology into it’s overall curriculum just due to the dependancy on the use of that medium in the creative process. SAIC has the laptop requirement so you’d think they would have done this. Your comments in this regard are very interesting.
Don’t lose hope - there are a few schools out there that are actually much more integrated w/r/t this amazing power. Not sure if you’ve looked at MCAD but they claim they were outfitting their main art building to make creative use of technology long before the other schools gave it a thought. Small school in Minneapolis and not all that expensive. D15 really liked it but wanted to go out of state. They have a decent reputation in some of their programs of study, and their use of technology in film, animation, graphic design, etc. is current with industry standards.
SCAD is another example. They have specialized technical fields of study (for instance, you can major in sound design or visual effects) and the amount of technology on campus will excite the digital creative to no end. The school completely embraces the use of technology and recognizes the power of this tool. And they put their money where their mouth is because their own digital interfaces (website, student portal, bill payment portal, etc.) are pretty much the smoothest and best designed that I’ve seen coming out of an academic institution - by a long shot. For anyone used to navigating the somewhat clunky and typically slow-running systems of your typical college (and your typical art school) - this is a startling and refreshing contrast.
Both MCAD and SCAD specifically describe their BFA programs as creativity with a specific purpose - and that purpose is to become employed in your creative field. Both have genuine professional development and career placement resources on hand (a must for any professional degree!) and have even integrated these into the core curriculum. Both are also far less caught up in the “intellectualization” trend than some others (MICA or SAIC). Not that there isn’t a place for that intellectualization in the art school world, especially at the bachelors’s level (which, of course, isn’t a terminal degree. It could well be that many who graduate from an “intellectually” focused school do go on to earn the MFA or another grad degree). Again, it comes down to different fits. What are you looking to get out of your program? That sort of thing.
Good luck to your son and keep us posted!
@sunnydo165 I just checked the FB page and no announcement has been made. You’ve probably done the same. They are on spring break now, although highly doubt that impacts the admissions office. Are you saying that the Jan. deadline was moved to March 4? Why would that be?
@JBStillFlying Pratt made an extension for regular decision, pushing it back a full month and a half (can be found here: https://www.pratt.edu/admissions/applying/applying-undergraduate/ug-application-requirements/).
I’m pretty sure they announced it after the original January deadline closed, otherwise I would have definitely submitted later. Not really sure what reason they had for pushing it back so far, and I’m not too thrilled about it.
@sunnydo165 totally understand what you’re going through! I’ve been waiting and checking my email every single day and it’s been the toughest waiting game! Last year’s results came out around 17th march onwards, and I hope that they don’t push it back further!
@AmbieLiu15 Exactly!! I’d been getting a steady stream of correspondences from colleges and now it’s quiet. Every day goes by so, so slowly when you’re obsessively checking application portals + email.
@JBStillFlying I really appreciate all your insights into art colleges and I’m always looking for good sources of info. I’ve gotten into Parsons with significant scholarship and have been told to expect acceptance from RISD (though I can’t know for sure.) My choice would come down to these two. What are your opinions on the Parsons and RISD (in terms of pedagogy, overall value, career contribution)? I don’t have any clear ideas of a major at this point, but am much more on the fine arts sphere than design.
JB—If SCAD’s technology impressed you, Ringling was given the distinction of the “most wired campus” in the nation by US News in 2014. Simply amazing.
@gouf78 given that the schools of art/design are supposed to be fonts of creativity and bold thinking, that distinction should be expected for at least a few of them.
@sunnydo165 Pratt, Parson’s and RISD are all excellent choices. RISD obviously has the added bonus of selectivity - pretty sure it’s job placement rate is tops among those schools but haven’t checked recently. RISD has also been a bit more generous with the scholarship money recently. Won’t be long now so good luck to you and keep us informed!
RISD has moved their notification date into ‘the last week in March’ (had received an email a couple of weeks ago that emails would go out around Friday, March 24th). Apparently, the snow days have caused the delay…