More of a personal topic -- uncertainities with art

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
1

<p>Is art what I really want to pursue?</p>

<p>Since I was five, my dream was to become an artist... It might sound arrogant, but I knew I had a flair, and I know I stand out among my peers, considering artistic techniques. However, these days I have been doubting myself and my abilities more than ever. Part of it is that I don't want to be so trite. I want to stand out, do something that nobody has seen before, at least not often. But what to do? I lack the creativity. Creativity. I lack it so much. Some people seem to have a innate sense for it, but I've realized I don't. And creativity... is what it all comes down to in art.</p>

<p>Another side of it is (as much as I hate to admit it) that the world, and the people have affected me, including my parents.. teachers. ("YOU're going to do art? But... why? You could do so many other things...") The comfort and solid foundations in life might not be granted to me as easily if I were, say, to become a doctor, if I pursue art. We all know that it's not the most lucrative career -- the trite saying "starving artists" doesn't create itself... it worries me; I hate to admit it. Will I survive? Or will I just become another mediocre, nameless artist?</p>

<p>I don't know. Maybe I have hit that wall I hear people talk about, and need to take a break. I wouldn't like to think of it that way... but I feel as if I need a change.</p>

<p>But I cannot be stopping mindlessly... If I lack improvement, I am screwed, for a lack of better words.</p>

<p>Am I fit for this?</p>

<p>====</p>

<p>Idk, I assumed many people felt like this at some point in their lives... I thought many people could relate to how I felt right now. So I want to ask you, why are you choosing to do art? I guess just personal feelings and relationships with art... heh. </p>

<p>Am I just a worrywart :d</p>

<p>(but I know I could never completely quit art. I guess I'm just not sure anymore about taking it as a major, a job, a CAREER)</p>

2

<p>Well, as for the creativity thing, I’d recommend taking as many different types of classes as possible. I’ve studied illustration, worked in sculpture and done computer graphics etc., but I was able to find my true love which is oil painting. Currently I’m improving technical skill… and I think this is a very good goal as a student, to not worry about creativity until one has achieved a certain highly skilled technical ability. For me I know that this will take 10+ years until I feel I have a good enough foundation to truly explore my creativity. Sure, I draw on the side my squibbly sketches and my fun personal paintings, but I found my true passion in exploring the technical side of oil painting. Do all you can to branch out… I thought I would love sculpture a few years ago, turns out, I was not set out to be a sculptor after all. So, all in all, art is not so much about “being different” than (for me) having a means of self-expression. Do what makes you happy, don’t worry so much about what YOUR art means to others (unless of course, you’re trying to get into art school.)</p>

<p>Oh, and believe me, I think all young artists all go through that period of self-doubt…As for the “starving artist thing”, I feel it’s always a good thing to have a back-up plan, otherwise I’m in the same boat as you, we’d need someone older and wiser to say if pursuing art is truly worth it. But I think it is. :D</p>

3

<p>I am old not wise but can say this, hung in there.
If you don’t feel like doing, you don’t have to make art till it comes back.
But do what you have to do meanwhile, like, go to school study bare minimum eat good sleep good
don’t do things you shouldn’t do; drugs, drinking, rockn rolling even for the excuse of " to get inspiration" no " but I create so much better when I’m high"
There is natural high, that comes to you when you are in zone, this book someone recommended I am half way now called " the Element" by Ken Robinson, read it if you don’t mind reading.</p>

<p>I always thought how nice to make dolls and sew stuff and draw manga all day long without parents teachers telling me to stop, never gonna make living.
Now I do that for living ( make bears and dogs and dolls, draw pictures for templates and tags and stuff that go with the products.
It sucks sometimes once it is your job.
Yet most of the time I look back and think that, I am doing what grownups said otherwise but doing it OK.
Mediocre artist life is not that bad come to think of it, as long as you can pay bills and just about enough to eat plus some chocolate.
Kids nowadays are lucky because there are so much more information and tools to find out anything about everything but unlucky because you’d know cons before any pros.</p>

<p>I’ll never be that good because
I won’t able to get in because
I can not pay for that because
I don’t think I am fit to do that because</p>

<p>I am against giving false hope or praise to my art kid. He knows all that above and me telling you are so talented! you’d get full scholarships! you’ll be the star! I am so proud of you! won’t help him much at this point.
but I will tell him if I really like something he did and why, even though noone else thinks it’s good.
What cool about art ( fine art ) is that, anything goes. Noone to judge you if your aim is just to create.
And often enough, in the end those kids who stick with it because they can’t help - are the ones that would make something out of their lives but often enough by paying price of one’s physical or mental health or personal hygiene or relationships ( with opposite sex, same sex, family, friends, dogs and cats)
Maybe we parents know this, that’s why we want square nice clean job for our kids and education that more likely to lead that way.</p>

<p>I the end, choice is yours and your life is just started, you never know. Keep it up.</p>

4

<p>I think you already are an artist and always will be. Whether you do it as your vocation or not is the question. Take your time, relax, think, question, and follow your instincts (which are subject to change without notice!). There will be many chapters in your life. So what’s first?</p>

5

<p>My dad has this saying that goes “things only move when you’re moving” and I have found it to be true in many instances. The only way to overcome your shortcomings, especially in art, is to work through them. It also helps if you begin reading a lot and looking at a lot of art in order to expand the way you think about art. You will find that a lot of kids with amazing “creativity” are simply thinking along very different wave lengths. So much, if not most, of art is about how you think.</p>

<p>Some people swear by their sketchbooks/visual diaries. So you may want to start one of those and begin recording everything and anything that you find interesting or beautiful. I also second zincoxide in that working out an idea across multiple media expands your perspective and thought processes.</p>

<p>There’s over reliance on education to provide job security. Sure doctors and engineers have more secure job paths but many people, I might even venture most people, don’t end up doing exactly what they studied in school. There are fortune 500 executives who studied comparative literature and philosophy as well as successful artists who started off studying aeronautical engineering. In the end, it seems like success is ultimately about what you make of yourself. And, if you fail at whatever you chose to study, you can always just do something else.</p>

<p>maybe a liberal arts college with a strong art department might be the best thing for now assuming you want to do fine art. If you’re interested in design you have to head over to art school. </p>

<p>PS. there are also quite a few mediocre artists who make a lot more than you might think as well as very renowned artists who make relatively little.</p>

6

<p>If you lack creativity, why not consider arts management?</p>

<p>One of many programs(this one is a graduate program)…<a href=“http://www.usfca.edu/artsci/ug/visual_arts/art_history_mgmt.html[/url]”>http://www.usfca.edu/artsci/ug/visual_arts/art_history_mgmt.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

7

<p>OP How do you know that you are not creative? Just the desire to do something different sounds pretty hopeful on that front…Think carefully about whether your definition of creative is really someone else’s standard.
Creative

  1. having the ability to create
  2. characterized by originality of thought; having or showing imagination
  3. designed to or tending to stimulate the imagination
  4. characterized by sophisticated bending of the rules or conventions </p>

<p>I particularly like number 4 …By your definition, I would not be “creative” because I am completely indifferent to making objects that are moving/interesting/stimulating/life-changing for myself or others. Yet, give me the chance to make a really unique mathematics model for real estate bond performance and I suddenly am “creative” (think imaginative and bend the rules) …You can be a creative curator, a creative business person in the arts, a creative artist if you remember that creative is one or all of hte above 4 definitions…All humans are creative…that’s what makes us human</p>

8

<p>MCAD (Minneapolis) has a BS in a program that is the business of art. </p>

<p>[MCAD:</a> Bachelor of Science Degree](<a href=“http://www.mcad.edu/showPage.php?pageID=1081]MCAD:”>http://www.mcad.edu/showPage.php?pageID=1081)</p>

9

<p>First of all Kudos to this entire form for their words of experience and wisdom to someone sitting on the fence. I am continually impressed with the words people share here amongst what many might see as a collective of complete strangers. Zinc-oxide, fineartsmajormom, kaelyn, bears and dogs, your efforts are certainly not going unnoticed here! Though mine may show up wearing a different veil. </p>

<p>@Purplicious</p>

<p>Beyond the identity and title ascribed by the curriculum and possibly the degree I think the conflict your facing most is in allowing yourself the time and consideration to just be you. You are obviously making a grave mistake in inferring a measurement of your creativity from the people and world around you and this certainly happens to all of us. I go into paralysis when I over-think people like Joseph Beuys and need to work but at other times he can be the great liberator of my predisposition to inhibit myself. There is a time we must turn everything off and fumble around in the dark to find ourselves and explore the ideas of authenticity since it is only when finding the trail of this that we can honestly feel a sense of becoming with regards to our own warm fuzzies we define as creativity. Academia is nothing more then a sense of community and a flirtation with new stimulus complimented by a specific organization of boundaries and road maps that may (or may not) give us the perspective necessary to persist in our creative endeavors. I will agree with Kaelyn in recognizing many great artists never studied art (especially in this day and age) but the people who really speak hybridize disciplines wither formally or informally. Art will teach you the valuable lessons of high ordered adaptation, problem solving, design, and frame it in the context of history/humanities/philosophy but it will be your personal responsibility to invest into yourself the ability to take delight in failure. </p>

<p>Your goal for your entire undergraduate degree should be to take enormous risks (intellectually/financially/socially) and to fail and fail repeatedly, to do whatever you must to provoke the most passionate brutal criticism from the often indifferent faculty members who tend to only like or dislike work, strike up the sighs of disapproval and discouragement from your advisers and peers, and sum them up to complete the feeling of accomplishment regardless of the grades you receive in the end. If a professor shows a spark of passion in disliking someone like Richard Serra then your new duty is to embrace Richard Serra obsessively until you can reach a different perspective then the one inflicted upon you. It is invaluable to have these points at which to depart. </p>

<p>If you want to make beautiful lines and share lovely symbols, and glorify the world with complimentary colors, I might suggest studying architecture, interior design, consumer sciences, textiles, or even graphic design. Art will have no use or room for you in it’s ongoing dialog that is so vital to our species that we owe it enough respect to know when to silence ourselves and step out into another field like agriculture for instance at which our sensibilities might find a better home to lay dormant in. </p>

<p>Craft is an obsolete and antiquated idea in the practice and discourse of art. Perhaps I should recommend people like Maslow and Rogers to you as a start to exploring your sense of humanity and potential to contribute to a dialogue needing many many more speakers on it’s behalf. One night a week with make magazine and a few hours to fumble in the dark could well make for a far better dialogue then years at Pratt or RISD. </p>

<p>B U T</p>

<p>If you do decide to jump in and continue the conversation with your art practice know that you owe yourself a lot of time and experience to bring out what belongs on the table (along with patience). The quickest path to take your seat is to delight and carve out the countless rewards of failure, the clarity of mistakes, and the timeless significance of the many unintended results that introduce beauty into our lives.</p>

10

<p>@Purplicious</p>

<p>For better or worse, before you make any decisions and hopefully take some of our words to heart I think you should explore the link to this site I have provided and click on the assignments tab. Explore executing some of these “assignments” and pick up Yoko Ono’s book called Grapefruit and perhaps execute one of those each day for a month. Perhaps a journal through the process might open up some much needed dialogues with yourself that may have become diffused by others. </p>

<p>Try to sit down with yourself after and ask yourself a question anytime you feel the need to make some sort of bold statement about anything in your life. Let that question initiate the action you take in response to the statement you originally intended to make. I often find that helps substantially!</p>

<p>[Learning</a> To Love You More](<a href=“http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/index.php]Learning”>Learning To Love You More)</p>

<p>Best wishes and thoughts</p>

11

<p>my head hurt reading your stuff, then… Yoko Ono! please don’t go there or go there elsewhere but not here (CC)</p>

12

<p>it is hard to ignore serra when it is sitting right front of the school albeit the smallish one.
i’d rather want to know your opinion on the raised hind pawpad of the bruin bear statue.</p>