michaelwebster

I would recommend including one art historian. They can usually write better than artists and contextualize your work, as long as your trust them and they know you well enough.

UNC (Chapel Hill) has a teaching practicum and allows grad students to teach classes solo. As for the unreasonable request part, do you want to go to college to learn from someone who has a few exhibiitions every now and then and thats it? I have some experience at a school with professors who werent very good artists and they werent very good teachers either. I notice often that they go hand in hand, because teaching art isn't about teaching a technical skill, but ways of thinking that allow students to succeed. I am a fan of teaching, I founded and taught an after school art program for high school students while getting my MFA, just because I wanted to. But college level jobs are super competitive now and unless your resume is packed with over a dozen exhibitions each year its about impossible to get a job.

I meant if your interests fit in with the department. You can substitute "interests" with "discourses, concepts, aesthetic sensibilities," or whatever else feels right for you. Departments usually have certain tendencies that might be difficult to tell without really deep research, and some are obvious. But if a professor shows disinterest then it might not be worth applying there, or at least do much more reseach on the program.

I think they'll be hesitant to tell you what type of work might be accepted, because its not easy to put into words. I would go ahead and send some of your work and ask if your interests fit with theirs. Also, if your not looking into past work by artists from that school you should do that first. If you can't find a list of current or recently past grad students then google something like "2012 MFA Painting School of the Art Institute of Chicago" and you'll find some recent MFA graduate's websites. After that look for links to friends websites, many of which are usually from the same program.

I would do it to ask if you would fit into their program. I wouldn't say anything about "slightly abstracted representational painting with a strong emphasis on content/meaning" but I would definitely contact at least one professor ahead of time just to get them familar with your work. I did it for SAIC, and that is where I ended up going. I also went to close schools before I applied, which is better than email or phone if you can get to any.

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design was really well known in the 70s and 80s, the same time as CalArts mythic period. I don't know much about them now, but I bet they are still good.

I would say many if not most of the MFA graduates (and faculty) from NYAA can technically paint as well as Richter. I believe you could give a Richter painting to most of those students and they could copy it, maybe they would need a little practice to get the smearing right.

Richter is not a superstar because of his technical ability. There are thousands of painters in the world today as good as he is. The reason he is a superstar is because of how his body of work engages the history of picture making, vernacular photography, archives, and the tension between surface and depth, to name a few things. I think what phale is saying is that you need more than technical skills to have a strong body of work to get into competitive schools.

I would definitely go with Glasgow if its not too expensive. I notice many more impressive artists from there than SFAI.

I am just not sure that youre ready for Yale, or maybe any grad school, yet. I think Yale could definitely be in your future, but I personally don't think youre quite there. You could surely get into some good grad schools, but if you want to realize your potential (and go to a school as competitive as Yale) I would keep developing your work and apply further down the road so you get the kind of school you want. Most BFAs don't adequately prepare artists to get an MFA, hence why most MFA students are 30 and have been out of school for 6 years developing their work in residencies and the like.

Its been awhile since Kehinde Wiley went to Yale. What you see in the most recent exhibition is a great example of the discourses happening in contemporary painting today. So if they accept maybe 1 or 2 painters out of hundreds of applicants who are painting in perspectival tradition that makes a good fit for the program?

If you are sure you want to go to grad school this year, I would recommend applying to many schools with a variety of reputations and appraoches to painting. I would also look at as much artwork from grad students at the schools youre interested in as soon as possible. MFA students are usually 3-8 years out of undergrad, so your going to need to work on the maturity of material manipulation and probably your writing too. I don't really see a strong correlation between your work and work from Yale students, but that doesn't mean that faculty won't like your work if you put it all together well. Keep in mind Yale probably accepts 3% of painting applicants.

Also, here is the link to the MFA painting exhibition from this year at Yale, so you can see some examples of work. http://art.yale.edu/Painting1MFA2012

Unfortunately, you can't very easily plan to make a portfolio for a school, you should instead make your work, and see what school likes you. You can never know what a school will love, so setting your sights on Yale is fine, but its a roll of the dice for even really great artists. You should post your portfolio though.

Sounds tricky. Do you have to go to a low res program? I am not sure I trust in low res since so much of what I learned in grad school was from immersion in the particular environment, peers, and local opportunities. Not to mention the reasoning to pay for such expensive schooling as SFAI is to try to build a career with the MFA as the platform, which I don't really believe low res gives you the network for that. Mass Art is a much better deal, SFAI is way too expensive and not worth it, while Mass Art is at least acceptable but still too expensive for low res. I would recommend making the sacrafice to go to school full time if your going to pay anything more than 10-20k.

I just meant that the question of labor was one of the major discussions happening with minimalism, and recent art history continues to come out with more about that relationship, such as this book http://www.amazon.com/Art-Workers-Radical-Practice-Vietnam/dp/0520269756/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338908208&sr=8-1 We can't adequately talk about minimalism without bringing up labor because of the repetition, industrial construction methods and materials, "theatricality" (objects relationship to the body) and group process in fabrication with artists like Judd, Andre, Serra, Le Witt, Flavin, and the attempt to highlight "intellectual labor" with artists like Cage and Raushenberg's white paintings. And younger artists still delve into that discussion as well, almost every writing about Santiago Sierra simultaneously evokes histories of minimalism and labor.

Definitely apply to SAIC because their focus is in contemporary abstraction in the painting dept and your interests seem relevant. Other than that I don't really follow painting closely, so I am not sure. and I just can't help myself I have to put these in here: I know about 1 artist who maybe challenges what art is. and minimalism is not an antonym for labor intensive, its more like a synonym.

yes, artists can get into an MFA program without an art degree. It sounds like you're probably not ready to apply yet, as most MFA students have been practicing artists for years, exhibited in a couple dozen shows, and have been out of undergrad for 3-8 years. Even almost all new graduates with BFAs in studio art are not ready for grad school immediately, so I would work on getting more experience before applying. If you want a few years of experience and institutional resources, maybe you can get into a post-bac or spend two years to get another bachelors in art. If you can, post your artwork or a link so we can give better advice.

There is also a huge difference between SCAD and SAIC in quality, as SCAD is not known for their MFA program at all. Since all private art schools are expensive, I would not advise to go to SCAD ever (regardless of how much scholarship you get), I would wait another year and reapply to more schools, or do the SAIC post-bac and reapply to more schools. You could easily get a lot more money at a state school that has a better program than SCAD.

Debt is probably 40-50k in tuition and whatever living expenses you take out. Jobs are easy to get in the school, but they usually don't pay much (less than the TAs). SAIC is really selective for photography too. I am in a photo seminar now so I hear some departmental gossip. Museum experience can be really valuable though, I might go with that if you get the chance.

Portfolio. Portfolio is always first.

Probably not worth it at a new program. New programs almost always equal poor programs because they haven't hade time to build a reputation and work out the kinks. Just because the school is prestigious in general doesn't mean the school name will mean anything to anyone in the art world. I would reapply next year.

1. MA's have a wider variety of classes to take outside of the art department, while and MFA is almost completely focused on art production/art history and theory. An MA may be looked down upon, depending on who is doing the looking. 2.People don't really get "scouted" for MFA programs. Sometimes faculty will recommend an undergraduate to a faculty friend at another school, but that is the extent of it. 3. Individuals in grad school (or prior to grad school) usually aren't making much money from their work, but by no means are you "out of the game". Actually many students are more active exhibitors while in grad school. There is no reason to not exhibit/sell work you create while in grad school. 4. If those examples look unfinished or wonky to you, then you may want more familiarity with contemporary painting. I don't think there is a stylistic name for the paintings you included, as generally contemporary painting is in a very open-ended place and not really defined by historical styles (as modernism was). To start to understand it, you need to learn more about contemporary painting (the book Vitamin P is a good example), and then you need to look at each artist's output individually (and look at the nuances) rather than lump it all together.

Just in case any of you are in Chicago on April 27th (this Friday), the MFA show opening is from 6-10 at 33. S State Street, 7th floor.

It doesn't matter if you were offered it, until you accept it you never got it. "Declined" after the award on your cv doesn't work either.