Going to Art School
Created | Updated Oct 28, 2008
There are basically 2 reasons to go to art school. One - to get a job in the creative industries, or Two - to expand your personal creative horizons and have some sort of mind expanding adventure.
The problem with reason Two is: everything at University or College these days is geared towards employment.
And the problem with that, and reason One is: you'll probably end up unemployed anyway*
However, some of us are daft enough to put our worries and debts to one side and not only sign up for a BA (which, in the field of art and design in the UK, requires one to commit to not 3 years but 4 once you've factored in your Foundation year - often a compulsory requirement to get into art college and do a degree); but then go on to do a Masters. There are obvious benefits to this, the most obvious being the pyramid effect - the further up the academic pyramid you go the less people there are on your level and therefore the competition is less - but also a lot of galleries and curators tend to want to show your work more if you have the letters MA after your name (look at art shows and check out the CVs of the artists!). Of course, there is also the prestigious "RA", and you only get this if you have managed to get on one of the Royal Academy of Arts postgrad courses and passed. This establishment is a law unto itself and is a self-replicating phenomena for artists. Their Summer Exhibition is pretty amazing and all sorts of doors get flung open for these lucky few. But generally only a tiny proportion of art students become successful artists, as now it is, like pretty much all industries, focussed on marketability and popularity. If you miss the bandwagon, you've pretty much had it.
*University of the Arts London students rank as the 3rd least likely to be in employment six months after they leave http://money.uk.msn.com/student/spendingandsaving/livingcosts/article.aspx?cp-documentid=6197016
Do you want fries with that?
The problem with reason Two is: everything at University or College these days is geared towards employment.
And the problem with that, and reason One is: you'll probably end up unemployed anyway*
However, some of us are daft enough to put our worries and debts to one side and not only sign up for a BA (which, in the field of art and design in the UK, requires one to commit to not 3 years but 4 once you've factored in your Foundation year - often a compulsory requirement to get into art college and do a degree); but then go on to do a Masters. There are obvious benefits to this, the most obvious being the pyramid effect - the further up the academic pyramid you go the less people there are on your level and therefore the competition is less - but also a lot of galleries and curators tend to want to show your work more if you have the letters MA after your name (look at art shows and check out the CVs of the artists!). Of course, there is also the prestigious "RA", and you only get this if you have managed to get on one of the Royal Academy of Arts postgrad courses and passed. This establishment is a law unto itself and is a self-replicating phenomena for artists. Their Summer Exhibition is pretty amazing and all sorts of doors get flung open for these lucky few. But generally only a tiny proportion of art students become successful artists, as now it is, like pretty much all industries, focussed on marketability and popularity. If you miss the bandwagon, you've pretty much had it.
*University of the Arts London students rank as the 3rd least likely to be in employment six months after they leave http://money.uk.msn.com/student/spendingandsaving/livingcosts/article.aspx?cp-documentid=6197016
Do you want fries with that?
