Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/03/attend-art-school-the-easy-way.html
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Art Instruction, Inc.—a real, serious thing, in case people may not realize. In business for a hundred years. I used to see a building with their sign on it, on my way home from work. It’s no longer in downtown Minneapolis, though—it moved to one of the inner-ring suburbs. Interesting history in the Wikipedia article. Looks like they are set to close at the end of this year, though.
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I knew they were an actual business at one time but didn’t know that they were still in operation. I might have been better off spending $3,485.00 on their 27 part course instead of the astronomical sum I plowed into a 4-year art school.
@mocon I always wondered what, if anything, was done with those art tests. They’re a surprisingly good gauge of a person’s hand skill and experience. Using line weight variation to define a form is not a trivial exercise.
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Is it really art school if you aren’t chain smoking cloves and regularly locked in a room to throw shade at each other?
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If memory serves, we smoked American Spirits, not cloves. The throwing shade part is spot on though.
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There is a free, anarcho-inspired art school here in Portland. I’ve been meaning to check it out, actually.
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During my studies the Graphic Design class joined my Fine Art group, just once, for a crit.
Art students, used to brutal constructive criticism, were fine with taking it, but really slammed the Design students who were a little unused to being questioned and all took it a little personally…
It was more like throwing chum than shade, a veritable feeding frenzy of “suggestions.”
Ah, happy days…
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At my school, all freshman had to go through the same Foundations program. A number of the instructors viewed their roles as akin to that of a drill sergeant- break everybody down, then build them back up piece by piece. My semester two drawing teacher reduced everyone to tears at one point or another; to this day I remember him savaging my midterm drawing project as a piece of “pornographic Walt Disney on acid bullshit” and suggesting that I should “go back to kindergarten” if I didn’t want to learn what he had to offer.
A fair number of people didn’t get through Foundations, but those that did came away with a mild case of Stockholm Syndrome and skin like an old boot. And while the instructors were a lot more supportive after freshman year, the crits were never anything other than gladiatorial combat. The Design students developed a different vocabulary than those of us in Fine Arts, but the blood lust was the same.
Good times for sure.
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what ever happened to the DRAW ME pirate? alas times change but art school goes on & on.
Do you still have this?
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It was a large format mixed media drawing, abstract, and not at all pornographic. I never figured out what he was reacting to.
I didn’t keep it because, description aside, he was right- it wasn’t very good. Also, it clashed with the couch.
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That sure beats the seventh grade art teacher who, upon seeing one of my early attempts in her class, asked me, “Are you sure you belong in this class?”
Ah, if only I’d had the wit to respond, “Are you sure you do?”
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