SocialKonstruct

I went by the very open stat of Yale having 1100-1200 applicants approximately every year so my estimate is not as good as yours. Plus COVID may have changed a lot of the stats for the past year.

Thanks for the information... that means Yale is getting about twice as many applicants for their MFA programs over UCLA then.

Geography, in my experience, is a HUGE fraction of what comprises your art networks during the MFA program and beyond.

Is that at Bard or ICP-Bard for the photography program? Thanks

Will do and applied for a few NFT sites. Still I have major reservations over the ecological waste that NFT development causes.

Definitely ask for more (and this from a guy who goes to SVA for their classes) :D. In fact, I think that if you ask they won't have any issues giving you more

I set up a NFT account today so I can create the work. I will see how it functions because I heard the NFT creation isn't free but as a student I can play around the medium.

Speaking of bots and art with technology, I am very happy to see digital art faring well during our time- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/arts/design/nft-auction-christies-beeple.html It's a new type of work but I love the radical nature of these beasts.

As soon as I saw conspiracy theories I was like uh oh, did QAnon invade here? ?

I am pretty uncertain about transfer of MFA credits but I suspect not many if any do this. Rare exceptions would have been the bailout from the USC MFA program years ago but that is a pretty extreme example; here folks who did part of the USC MFA ended up finishing at a different program.

My closest friend and collaborator is at Arts and Tech MFA track at CalArts. I can ask him.

I know that I ended up taking a lot of private loans in addition to public govt. loans when I did my MPH degree back at Yale.

I remember the good ole days of Legal Seafood out in Baltimore. Very pricey but pretty good grub!

Grats to all of the CMU acceptances. I actually got a sticker from them and put it on one of my laptops. Very awesome place. Pittsburgh I have never been to so I can't tell you what it's like over there.

Woohoo. I like Boston quite a bit as a Brooklynite and don't forget to check out Chinatown there. Some of the best Chinese meals I ever had I wandering around that area.

Good luck with your Zoom interviews!

Indeed. You said this very brilliantly and accurately. A lot of the MFA programs in the LA/NYC are able to get the curators, other artists, and critics through the studios physically. It is geography there. Two of the prime exceptions are RISD and Yale which are not in big cities but close by. Another factor is the level of challenge and incorporation of critical theory into the program. The very top schools are going to have very tough readings and I meant you have to be at the top of your game to know what the hell (or fuck) you are reading. Want an example of readings for a top notch MFA? Here is a sample at Calarts of what you are required to read: Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. In: Illuminations. Hito Steyerl, “In Defense of the Poor Image”. In: The Wretched of the Screen. Rosalind Krauss, “The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition”. In: The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. or Richard Shusterman, Self-styling after the end of Art and Self as Art Luciano Floridi, The Informational Nature of Personal Identity These are not just easy texts to gloss over or skim. You will have to be at the top of your game to understand these oft difficult critical texts as well. And these so-called elitist MFA programs are teaching artists to be critical problem solvers and not just folks who pump out artworks without any context. Plus you are going to be networking consistently with those who are tied to the NYC/LA museum systems as well. The point is as an incoming MFA student you have choices. You can do whatever you wish whether teach, enter a huge gallery, or just work in a studio at a local gallery. But consistently a lot of folks want to apply to the top ranked programs and there is a huge reason for that. This pattern is not accidental.

Good luck on your USC interview woot woot! My prayers be with you :).

Now you got my ears perked up because I was seriously looking at UIC for Laura Letinsky and him specifically... Going to definitely PM you about this because this would be huge for my decision here. Thanks for the scoop.

Thanks. Honestly not interested at all in self-promotion. Just trying to chill, make friends here, maybe help whatever I can, occasionally gossip, and learn more about what the MFA process is going to be like. I plan as a conceptual artist to make my MFA journey into a work of art which is going to be very interesting. Not sure what the results will be. Maybe risky? I don't want to do into more debt over a MFA (as I still owe a lotta money from my previous degree) but I do want to make friends and still have a modicum of success in the contemporary art world. I am not suggesting everyone follow what I do because it's an individual thing. Maybe I will put a huge disclaimer on whatever I post here. Take me with a huge grain of salt. Just one artist in a pond of fish here

I still want a single payer healthcare system and tried to work on that at Yale in 1999-2001. And nothing has changed at all but gotten worse as our health care system is more capitalist than ever. The major change is that I became a neo-Marxist and anti-neoliberal capitalist over the years. Public health officials are now being treated as criminals- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/17/florida-rebekah-jones-covid-data-analyst-arrest-warrant Now public health has become about supporting the fat cats of hospitals and drug companies. I walked away from my public health experience completely in 2008. Very grateful. My dream job is just to be an artist and curator now.

I ended up switching to visual arts after 20 years in the public health and computer software fields. I learned that my idealism was tempered by the destructive politics which has gotten worse today. My happiness is much better now that I can do photography and sculpture as much as I can. Plus help run a gallery here in SLC too.

The financial thing is weighing on my mind too. I am debating whether to add more school loans on top of the loans I already have :\. Plus the world can change very quickly by 2023 too.

I agree. My art practice right now in my BFA photography program has shifted a lot already. When I started school two years ago I wanted to be a photojournalist but now I am interested in social practice and conceptually constructed photography and sculpture. Theaster Gates is pretty awesome and I look to his example of how to conduct an ethical and thoughtful studio practice. Already he is helping out Chicago better and faster than the local politicians there who argue over how to reconstruct Chicago cultural centers.