pearspears

At our university you can teach after 30 credits of coursework completed. I am still in my third year, but have the option of teaching a freshman class at my public state university. I also have the option of waiting (that would be a lot on top of working on my thesis show) and teaching a class at a community college in another state due to a connection I have. What would be better on a resume for clout and future employers?

Is this insane? For an MFA? On this plan you pay back at max 15% of your discretionary income (what's leftover after what they consider essentials) for 25 years and then the rest is forgiven. I know people do this, but is real life hell afterward? Or is it manageable? If I do this it would be due to mistakes I've made so I DON'T NEED A LECTURE. I got accepted into an almost free program and could finish there but would need to max out what I still can to scrape by because not everything is free in it. I've crunched numbers and I don't think I can avoid doing this.

Be prepared for lotsssss of letterpress though at UoA. That was like her whole first semester.

I heard UC Santa Barbara was not so great, honestly. I knew someone who visited who realized it's a huge party school. She ended up at University of the Arts and was really happy.

I'm wondering if this will be worth it?...

Anyone familiar with this program and their usual offers?

Is this real life, lol.

You would grow to resent him and probably divorce him and be middle aged and no longer young and able to follow your dreams the way you can now. So no. Don't do it.

I am wrestling with this as well and so I thought back on the last ten years of college and after, and thought through the most stressful times....and while I have a few people I am still friends with, without a doubt the most stressful times all involved living with people. Their drama spilling into what should have been school. My aversion to living with people is in fact so extreme that I would rather live at home, buy a car, and commute an hour and a half one way to avoid it. So, I guess it depends on what you are willing to put up with. Since I will have a fellowship I decided roomates aren't worth it.

Would this be unbearable? I'd have a 20 hour assistantship, and possibly a cousin's couch to crash on if the roads are bad (Western PA). Do you think that this would affect my transition into school? It would be really hard for me to find housing ahead of time and I dont want to do the sight unseen thing and sign a lease... Is it hard to find housing after the school year starts or easier you think? Would prices go up because there's less or down because they are desperate to get someone? What has been your experience?

Wheeerreeee can I find housing? I'm 28 and don't want to live with a bunch of 18 year olds on campus, but off campus housing consists of stuff that is almost $1000 a month. Where are normal-priced studios? Would commuting an hour and a half one way be worth it the first semester??

"...being plain ignorant" . I hate when discussions devolve into this. Ignorant of what, exactly? The secret formula to what constitutes "good art"? Please...enlighten us. I don't mean this as snark btw....I just feel it's like a brick wall.

Here's the thing. Why would Albert Durer need to go to grad school? That sort of work has already been done extensively in the history of art and grad school is expressly for contemporary art (ie forms like new media, social practice and ways of looking at traditional media in a new way). If you are already happy with your practice then why still go to school? Why not keep making as you have been, as it's obviously been working for you? One professor told me that they want students who are interested in challenging themselves and pushing into new territory because otherwise it's just a funded residency, not an education. If you really want to keep making the work you're making, then perhaps residencies are the answer. I think they are more designed to provide space for artists to do what they want, and don't involve as much of a push to experiment." Well, I was using the example of someone LIKE Albrecht Durer....obviously if it were actually him he wouldn't have been copying his own artwork from previous centuries. I suppose my take on it is that just because a medium has been done extensively in the past doesn't mean it's DONE. All through undergraduate school I heard that figure painting was DONE. That painting in general was done. It had been taken as far as white paint on white gesso on a canvas and there was nowhere else to take it. That was ten years ago and people are still painting....figures too! The argument that EVERYTHING has to be contemporary reeks of blind assimilation, of appeal to authority, of everything art is supposed to not be about. I'm not sure I know who Firenze is, but I could guess, and I could also guess he's going to a classical school there that is more of an atelier. And I honestly can get what he's saying. Much of the criticism I can get in critique is political, not really even addressing the work at hand outright, but dismissing it it as "already done". What, exactly, has not already been addressed? Every human emotion under the sun has been addressed in the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, any mythic tradition of any ancient culture really. Every emotion under the sun has been felt before. We're just using different mediums at this point. Why is one to be rejected outright because it's old? I just really don't understand this at all. Surely there is another school of thinking as far as this is concerned?

"The art that I have made with gay themes in it has been met with blank stares, misunderstanding, outright criticism and ignorance inflected with homophobia." MLK where are you going to school? That's really unfortunate. Sorry you had to deal with that. Even in my bodunk town the universities where a little more accepting.

I don't think 'just the act of putting the work up' is really addressing what I meant by closed loop, as far as concept. I'm saying work itself CAN be a closed loop, if there's an unwillingness to communicate, or to put in more cliche terms, block off the viewer from entering or engaging. That feels reductive, like saying Sherrie Levine and Richard Prince only plagiarized. There's a deeper meaning behind their work, and it's something that is/can/has been teased out, along with other artists who utilize appropriation. That said, I would feel nothing seeing someone try to pull off this sort of gesture in school. Along that line I don't know if Durer Jr. would elicit a response greater than 'it's exquisitely crafted.' if it's not going to address the past but simply sink into it. I find the example a little far fetched to begin with, considering image saturation today. So you're saying you prefer the work of Duchamp to the work of Durer because Duchamp was trying to say something relevant to the current art climate that could be understood by other people, while Durer's was in many ways very personal ( as personal as his own depression, e.g. Melancolia....which could still be argued to be universal by defacto, because it's about sadness). ?

"Criticism in critique shouldn't be a motivator to 'conform.' It's a means for the maker to experience engagement with their work, not strangers laughing at your baby screaming 'ugly' for 2 hours. If there is no criticism, nothing to question, what then is the point of a work if it's a closed loop? It's pretty? Also to a broader point what is the 'current worldview of academic art?' So when you say "would be given assistance and encouragement" you are basically describing a montessori school? Pandering gets a person how far? " Sorry, I didn't mean this to lead into a discussion as to whether criticism is valid. Obviously we need criticism, and as we're dealing with a subject matter that has no right answer (and being that artists are the way they are) obviously some feelings are going to be hurt and toes are going to be stepped on. I took a look at your website by the way, and I like some of your work and some of it I don't really get, but I appreciate it none the less. But what if you were teaching a first year graduate level art class, and the second coming of Albrecht Durer walked through the door. And he didn't want to make installations or neo Dada or anything having to do with the current sociopolilitcal climate. He wanted to keep making elaborate anal retentive engravings of biblical scenes full of pathos. Would you say that's bullshit? Like, who decides? I have a friend that does nothing but flower paintings. I would agree with you that they're kind of empty and soulless and I personally would never make art that looks like that, and don't really see the point of that vs. her taking a picture. But come hell or high water I can't see her ever wanting to do anything else. To her, what her paintings represent are Buddhist nature poems (she's Japanese). Noone could ever guess that was the inspiration by looking a it. Are you saying, then, that her work is "failing". Or, at least in that capacity? Would that be her major stumbling block in graduate school? I've never sat in on a graduate level critique so I'm honestly curious.

My best friend got a free ride to a fairly well respected program. She's a computer genius who does coding in conjunction with hand pulled prints that she then manipulates by hand and then rescans and makes move. It's really compelling stuff and very unique. She also does webcomics. She is miserable in her program because she has only had time to do her comic stuff on the side and for her senior thesis show most of her time is being spent on making a 20 foot paper mache whale. No, I'm not kidding. Is a free fully funded degree worth it if it is going to result in a situation in which I am similarly spending 3 years arguing over my lack of "concept"? My work is very difficult technically so I'll admit that I have to better define what it is I'm trying to do but I have spent several years making a body of work that I'd like to have grow and change and evolve, not scrap completely because my graduate committee thinks it's crap. They haven't said any of this btw; it is just me being cynical. But does this happen often? How do you push back if this seems to be happening? DO you push back? I understand you have to take into account the point of critiquing is to criticize, to make better....but I see what happened with my best friend and its seems like she's spent the last three years putting on hold what she is actually good at and what sets her apart artistically to please other people, and the thought I'm walking into the same thing makes me wanna barf. Help.

It's a state school and it's for printmaking. It's not exactly an illustrious program (I got into a top ten one but can't afford it in a million years) but it's one that I am interested in because it's in an area I want to stay in.So for another reason I'm leary of burning bridges so to speak.

I might be able to but they actually scrounged up double funding for me so I would feel pretty bad turning it down. Plus I'm unsure and might regret NOT going.

How badly is this looked upon? Do graduates ever take leaves of absence after their first semester to consider more? E.g. go in the fall and then take the spring off?

I think your pencil drawings are your strongest pieces. If you did 20 of these that were strong I could see you getting accepted straight away at a lower tier state school. If you can get funded for this you could take those 3 years to make a body of work and then apply with that to a more competitive school. iI think the idea that some schools are 'better' than others though is really grey area. if you have a good portfolio that is going to trump going to Yale.

So I'm a moron for being honest about the weather? I am from this area but don't know how to dress? You sound like the socially inept, backwards neckbeard Pennsyltucky stereotype that people hate about Western Pennsylvania. How dare I tell people that it's probably preferable to have a car when it's cold outside and there are advisories to not go outside! Yes, you should just totally disregard that and GO STAND AT A BUS STOP. Yes I agree that there's a moron here and it's not me. Good thing it's Sunday tomorrow! You can go dahn to the Strip and then go pick up some beer at Giant Iggle and watch a Stillers game and eat your french fry sandwich and talk about all those mean anti Pittsburgers on the gradcafe website.

What about the idea of going a year, then taking a leave of absence a year? Can you get it back? What if the reason is medical in nature? I know these cases are all individual, but there must be a standard protocol that schools generally follow.

I had a friend that missed the deadline for UCSB and wanted to try at CSULB but has heard they don't offer ANY aid. Is this true?

Are you serious? What exactly are you contributing to this conversation? This is a topic about finding husbands in graduate school. She is being honest and describing herself as a pleasant person and how this might lead to easy conversations with people, which lead to relationships, which might lead to marriage. And so you criticize her for sounding nice? How is being a people person equal being a robot? I don't know, I was just casually reading this and felt compelled to jump to her defense, because I think she is too nice to tell you you sound like a jerk.