<p>My son is "multi-potentiality" which is to say he is blessed to be good at many things & confused as to what to pursue in college. My goal is to have him experience enough in high school to make an informed choice for college. His college interests ran the gammat from Air Force Academy to BFA.</p>
<p>He is currently attending a 2 week day program at Tyler (Temple art school).</p>
<p>I am looking for other suggestions for art summer or weekend programs. Not "glossy" art is fun stuff, but the meat & potato stuff. </p>
<p>And yeah -- I'm weeding out the Air Force Academy - he joined Civil Air Patrol -- really, can you imagine an artsy type kid at the Academy?!</p>
<p>I have two daughters taking advantage of the [Miami</a> Junior Scholars Program](<a href=“http://www.units.muohio.edu/jrscholars/]Miami”>http://www.units.muohio.edu/jrscholars/) taking college level classes in Art History and Intro to Architecture. The classes are very small/personal, the facilities are excellent and they report that their professors are outstanding.</p>
<p>Since it is already mid-July, I assume that you are taking suggestions for next summer. Is that correct? If so, I’d like to recommend the pre-college program at RISD.</p>
<p>My son was similar to yours in that he was good at many things and was taking the usual honors/AP college prep curriculum in HS but really had no focus as to what he wanted to study in college. He had always liked to build things (Legos, K’Nex, Erector sets, etc.) and he seemed to be drifting towards a career in engineering or maybe architecture, but I think that was more out of familiarity than any real desire. (Both parents are engineers and many family friends are engineers and architects.) So the summer between his junior and senior years of high school, we sent him to RISD to help him decide if it was actually the building (engineering) or the designing (architecture) part that he enjoyed more. He had never had any sort of formal art training (other than a one-semester “Intro to Art” course required at his HS) so we thought the RISD program might help him decide if he really wanted to undertake the intense drawing and design classes required for studying architecture.</p>
<p>We were absolutely floored when he returned home and announced that he had finally found his PASSION – industrial design! (Sort of splitting the difference between engineering and architecture, lol!) The summer experience at RISD also convinced him that he wanted to go to an art/design school rather than a university. In the end, he chose to attend RISD and just graduated in May with his BFA in Industrial Design.</p>
<p>On the other hand… his roommate in the summer program decided that he absolutely did NOT want to be an art major in college because he hated the intense studios and crits!</p>
<p>Your experience is exactly what I am hoping for – summers to cement or weed out so he can focus on the correct college schooling. We haven’t much money. Our friends & family think I’m pushing him too much because he is young, but I’d rather have him try things out now then go through 4 years of undergrad, straped with debt & decide it was all wrong</p>
<p>My daughter was the same. RISD pre-college was a blessing for helping her sort out whether art school was the right place for her. She has decided to go to art school.</p>
<p>If your son will be a rising senior next summer, look at the Marie Walsh Sharpe program in Colorado Springs. My son is returning today from a two week session. Very selective, they work the kids very hard, and all accepted students receive a full scholarship, which includes room, board tuition and even art supplies! The only expense for the students is to provide their own transportation to Colorado Springs.</p>
<p>My daughter’s summer experiences this year have been at SAIC ECP and Californai’s CSSSA. She found that SAIC offered a really focused program that taught her skills she didn’t have before (stretching and prepping canvases) and really pushed her to not just dabble in oil painting, but work at gaining foundations for improving. On the other hand, she’s found that CSSSA was much more “dabbly” and assumed alower skill level, while allowing for more exposure to professiona artist speakers.</p>
<p>My DD just finished the 2 wk program at New Hampshire Institute of Art. Before she went, she was nervous about whether there would be any kids like her (not preppy or snobby), would she make friends, etc. Yes, there were kids like her, yes she made friends the first day, and during the final exhibition, they offered her a $5000 scholarship to attend the school. During her portfolio review at School of the Art Institute Chicago last week (which was accepted!), the reviewer was amazed at the amount of work she had done during that time. It was definitely worth it - it helped her see how art school was going to be and that she’d be fine!</p>
<p>Notnim, my son is also something of a Renaissance man. He is attending college on an Army ROTC scholarship and is majoring in film production. He is also very active in a political club at his university.</p>
<p>Since you said money is a factor and your son has an interest in the military, I’d strongly recommend that you look into Army ROTC. They don’t limit what you can major in, nor do they restrict you very much in what school you attend. You do have to attend one with an Army ROTC program or one that has an affiliation with the Army ROTC program at a nearby university. “Art Schools” would likely not be an option, but pursuing an “artsy” degree at a university would be. It’s full tuition and fees, a book allowance + a monthly stipend. The obligation is 8 years…either 4 years active duty + 4 years inactive reserve or 6 years National Guard or Reserve + 2 years inactive reserve. For art majors, the obligation can be a very good thing as it is a guarantee of a paying job. ;)</p>
<p>I am a rising senior, and I have taken many summer classes at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts. If your son is at all interested in realist/representational art, I highly recommend any of their summer programs! I would recommend the 2-week portfolio development class, which I took last summer. Their classes focus a bit less on design and concept and more on developing skill in the area of traditional realist art.</p>