PreachingToTheBirds

Greetings, I was wondering if anyone could offer their thoughts on letters of recommendation for MFA applications that are written by non-artists. I am applying without a BFA and my academic background is in the humanities (although a visually-focused, arts-related discipline). For that reason, my best recommenders are going to be primarily scholars - literary critics, film critics, gender theorists, poets, etc. These are people who are part of the discourse of contemporary art, and in some cases very recognizable names (you'll find their books on the shelves at the bookstores of major contemporary art institutions) but are, by the same token, not themselves practitioners. In general, I am not too worried about this, as my work is very conceptually grounded, and the programs to which I'll be applying are as well. However, I notice that Yale's website mentions that letters of recommendation should come from "three persons practicing or teaching in the field in which application is made..." Does anyone have a sense of how hard and fast this requirement is? Do I need to be branching out now to try and widen my pool of contacts to get some practicing artists to write recs for me? Is it hopeless without that? Given Yale's reputation for being very cerebral in their approach, I was quite surprised by this, especially because many other schools list no such stipulation and in fact are very broad in their wording about letters of rec. Any thoughts would be appreciated! And for what it's worth, I'm looking primary at the Sculpture program. Thanks very much.