lady rainicorn

Yeah, same with Columbia. They didn't have much regarding facilities for people working in metals or glass. And I believe they mentioned phasing out litho. However they did sell their program based on faculty contact, if anything it sounds intense! You meet with a faculty member one on one every week, seeing each faculty member twice per semester. And the visual arts program brings in scholars from outside departments to lecture for their critical issues classes. Students control and run the visiting artists lectures. And each student is assigned 2 mentors/semester, where each mentor has 1 full week with their assigned students. (dana schutz was on that mentor list) What the mentors do with their students runs the gamut, from taking trips, to visiting studios, to gallery hopping. However, Columbia is not a cheap school, but you can see what that tuition money is paying for!

Oh man, really? Eeee... oh the stress! Luckily I'm getting some good practice in, as my bf is currently enrolled in an art history MA program. We chat about art, art history, and theory almost everyday. I just hope this will help, if I'm lucky enough to score an interview that is. Again, oh the stress! O_O

I would stick to the 10. On the Rutgers admission site (http://grad.admissions.rutgers.edu/GraduateProgram/Detail.aspx?code=08081°ree=MFA), it specifies 10 (Requirements: Portfolio of 10 images of recent work, copy of 3 recommendations and statement via SLIDE ROOM). And on slideroom, in the instructions at the top of the page, it states, "Please submit a portfolio consisting of 10 images of your most recent work. Each image should be captioned with your name, the image number, title, dimensions, materials, and date." So just b/c you CAN upload more than 10, I don't know that you SHOULD. And anyway, if you have 10 great images, I don't think that adding 3 more is going to make or break you. On another note, anyone preparing for interviews? And if so, how?

Hmm, it seems that they definitely specify distinctly another medium. I would contact admissions though and ask if you can submit all 10 in painting, you never know. There's nothing wrong with asking for clarifications, sometimes universities don't always make things 100% clear. (ahem, did anyone else notice that Rutgers had a big typo on their slideroom page...>_<) However if they really do want to see work in other media, I wouldn't submit slides in both printmaking and sculpture, that looks a little scattered. I think printmaking makes the most sense (well, if your prints are better and more relevant to your body of work than your sculpture), since printmaking and painting have a close relationship. But in the end, I would go with whatever work best supports your collective vision. I went to Columbia's open house in the fall, and they said that they were looking for people who have a very strong idea of what they want to focus on. They also said be weary of including work that covers too much variety (in media and content), b/c it can look like you don't know what you want. Ok, there's my 2 cents. Good luck!!!

Hurrah! All my materials have been submitted! Now time to just sit and wait... oh the torture! >O<

Most schools are looking for an art-specific resume/CV. So with that you should include your education, solo shows, selected group shows, awards & grants, and publications. If you have teaching experience, you may want to include that as well. If you don't know how to format it, go to a top notch gallery's website and see how their represented artists' CVs look. However some schools do ask for a work history (like Hunter), in which case you may upload your work/professional resume (in addition to your art CV later in the application). What you put down is debatable. If you have some impressive work experience, I would include it, especially if you've been out of school for a number of years. In the end, don't sweat the CV too much, it's really not that important in the big scheme of things. If anything, if you look too accomplished, it could count against you. (as said by faculty at Columbia)Good luck!!

According to RISD's website: "Recommenders may also use their own stationery, but it is critical that they include your full name in their letter. Recommendations should be sent by the writer directly to the Admissions Office in time to meet the January 10 deadline." I believe with RISD, all materials (SOP, CV, letters of rec, portfolio, and transcripts) have to be received by Jan 10th, so it's NOT a post-mark date. As long as your name (and maybe some other identifying info, like address or email) is written on all your materials, it shouldn't matter the order in which they arrive to the school (in theory). Other schools may have a post-mark date and not a receive date, but the rest of the schools I'm applying to deal with everything online, so I don't really know.

It also depends on the program. Honestly, some graduate committees don't even read the statements (most of them are too painful to read I've been told by various professors)... and others, not only do you need to have the best work, but you also have to be an all-around amazing person with amazing ideas, as described through your statement (hello ivy leagues!). Some extraneous advice, before you finalize your statement, read it out aloud. Sometimes one designated person in the committee will read the statements out aloud to everyone else as they click through the slides. Don't worry too much. Just keep the jargon to a minimum and write sincerely. In the end, it's the work that will make or break you.

To answer my own question, for the benefit of others out there, if you do find an opportunity to show work to faculty of programs that you're interested in, I would highly recommend it. The only way to really have a conversation about your potential relation to the program is through the work. And it gives you an opportunity to connect the person behind the images with the art. Every little bit helps, I think. And if for some reason they are turned off, well, it would've happened at the interview stage anyway. K, good luck everyone!!!

Heyyy- I'm in need of some opinions. I will be going to an open house for an upper tier MFA program in the next few upcoming weeks. I actually already met the chair of the program, had a really great critique with him, and b/c of him, I changed my focus on which dept to apply through (which turned out miraculously for the better, concerning my work). He's offering to introduce me to the head of the department I'm interested in applying to. Now the question is, do I bring work to show the head of the dept? How could this help or conversely hurt? And could this seem potentially overly pushy? Man, I wish I wasn't such an awkward nerd. >_< Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks guys!

I would say that Francis Bacon dealt with some of the existential-like issues you're interested in. If you're feeling up against a wall, I may suggest reading, or look to something outside of the visual arts. Maybe you should read some Camus if you want to think about hopeless situations, or Marx, as he dealt with the anxiety and disengagement of the working people in the face of capitalism. Much of the impetus for my own work has come from literature, film, and personal experience. Beware of using art historical terms in ways that they shouldn't be used. ressionism'>Expressionism is specific to the modernist movement at the beginning of the 20th century. If you explain what you're trying to do without using heavily loaded (and sometimes incorrect) terms, I think you'll find yourself not getting into any trouble and if anything, being more succinct. I agree with TheStranger that some of your earlier work does have that undergraduate feel. But no worries, just keep painting! Based on the progression of your newer work, it looks like if you keep working, something great will explode. Remember, work comes from work. Over the summer a friend posted a great quote by Chuck Close in our shared studio space: “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.” -Chuck Close

From the words of Jerry Saltz: http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2012/09/21/10-pieces-of-advice-for-artists-from-jerry-saltzs-keynote-speech-at-expo-chicago/ 1. Go to an art school that doesn’t cost too much. Those who go to Yale and Columbia might get a nine-month career bump right after graduation, but you’ll all be back on the same level in a year, and you won’t be in as much debt. 2. Envy will eat you alive. 3. Stay up late with each other after all the professors go to sleep. Support one another. 4. You can’t think your way through an art problem. As John Cage said, “Work comes from work.” 5. Follow your obsessions. If you love the Cubs that much, maybe they need to be in your work. 6. Don’t take other people’s ideas of skill. Do brain surgery with an axe. 7. Don’t define success by money, but by time. 8. Do not let rejection define you. 9. Don’t worry about getting enough sleep. Worry about your work. 10. Be delusional. It’s okay to tell yourself you’re a genius sometimes.

Yeah, definitely avoid community college classes if you can. If you have access, I would try and take adult/continuing education classes at an art school or a decent university/college. You'll be exposed to people who are art majors and those who see art as more than just a passing hobby. If you are serious about going into art, I wouldn't think too much about the issue of "delying" real life (the artist's life doesn't really fit into the normal mold anyway, yay!). Residencies can be wildly helpful and you don't always have to pay. You get to meet people at all stages of their careers and some have visiting artists that conduct studio visits. I was at a residency this past May, and I was able to collect information on all the schools I'm interested in, b/c there were graduates of all the programs I'm considering and some of the visiting artists were actually current faculty at these schools as well. And if you're really really serious about making art, full-time job or not, you have to train yourself to find energy. We've all been there. Get creative with your schedule. When I was doing full time lab research I would paint at night. When I taught abroad, I got up at 5am to draw before I had to teach my classes. You just have to do what you gotta do to get the work done. If you have any questions on residencies and the such, shoot me a pm!

I would definitely wait. There's no rush! When you enter an MFA program, your work should be at the cusp of being at a very professional level. The way I look at it, everyone drops to the same level again once they enter an MFA program, whether your 23 or 30. So you should really enter with a good amount of preparation and insight about yourself so that you can get the most out of the experience. I don't know how far out of undergrad you are, but I really want to emphasize that there isn't any rush. And I think your non-art-experience in the long run could help you, so don't see that as a weakness. I actually doubled in painting and a physical science and I think my time and research in another field has helped me a lot in shaping how I think about the world and my work. But you need to make sure you're fully caught up in art history, some critical theory, and the everyday language of art. If you've never been torn apart in a group critique, I recommend experiencing that before getting to grad school. There are also a lot of philosophies out there for grad schools. Some tear down students and then build them back up. Others intensely challenge what you want to do as an artist, and you in turn have to defend what you're doing. But I think, no matter the philosophy, you should have a good sense of self and what you desire as an artist. Otherwise you may end up floundering for 2 or 3 years. Take some classes, read, and look at as many images as you can - all of it, paintings, photos, prints, throughout history, West and East, anything related to visual culture. The more you have stored in your brain, the more informed your work will be, and the better you'll understand what you're doing relative to a very large and rich history of images. Best of luck!!!

wm000 ~ Recommendations don't necessarily have to be from artists. For instance Columbia specifies, "Recommenders can be undergraduate, graduate, or professional contacts; they should be people who can speak to your creative ability and potential," while SAIC states, "You are responsible for securing letters of recommendation from persons who are qualified to write about your potential for success at SAIC." With that said, I don't think that all artists are necessarily capable of writing a decent recommendation letter nor that all good writers know how to write about art. I think if the reference can communicate well how he/she is familiar with your work, your creative potential, and how you as a person would contribute to a program, then there shouldn't be a problem. If your relationship to this person is within a professional or academic realm, even better. However if this person is an amazing writer, but is really unfamiliar with the visual arts, I would definitely be weary. Also, I think reference letters are less about "illuminating" your art and more about discussing the person behind the art. Your images should stand alone to a degree, since that is generally the first admissions cut, blind to your statement, CV, and reference letters. I've talked to people who have sat on admissions committees, and a lot of people don't get past 2 or 3 slides. So if you do get through the first cut, your images have done their job. The committee then wants to see how you would contribute to the dynamic of their potential incoming class, and this is where the reference letters come in. In the end, use your own discretion. Good luck!

However, I'll also add, that this doesn't mean that I don't believe in a good drawing foundation for all artists. For those who didn't see last year's De Kooning retrospective at the MoMA, at the beginning of the installation there were examples of De Koonings early works which were made when he was training at Rotterdam’s Academy of Fine Arts and Applied Sciences. “Still Life (Bowl, Pitcher and Jug)" (c. 1921) was a shining example of De Kooning's academic drawing ability, taking approximately 600 hours to complete. I didn't record the exact quote while I was there, but to paraphrase, De Kooning claimed that it was because of his classical training, he was allowed to produce everything else that followed.

In response to the above mentioned topic of traditional figure painting, I'm sharing a passage from "Art and Fear, observations on the perils (and rewards) of artmaking," by David Bayles and Ted Orland. I too am a recovering figure painter who was interested in traditional technique, hehe. "...artists who need ongoing reassurance that they're on the right track routinely seek out challenges that offer the clear goals and measurable feedback -- which is to say, technical challenges. The underlying problem with this is not that the pursuit of technical excellence is wrong, exactly, but simply making it the primary goal puts the cart before the horse...To the viewer, who has little emotional investment in how the work gets done, art made primarily to display technical virtuosity is often beautiful, striking, elegant...and vacant... Compared to other challenges, the ultimate shortcoming of technical problems is not that they're hard, but that they're easy... It's easier to paint in the angel's feet to another's masterwork than to discover where the angels live within yourself." This passage doesn't pertain specifically to just figure painting, but I think it addresses a similar hang-up.

Count me in! My short list as of now is: Columbia (applying through printmaking) Hunter (printmaking / drawing / works on paper) Rutgers RISD (either printmaking or painting) I've talked to former graduate students from each program, but would love to hear any opinions people have about these programs. Thanks!

I would also avoid calling yourself a "portrait painter." I feel like to many in the art world (deserved or not) this term can have somewhat of a pejorative quality within the context of contemporary art. And even if you would like to fight the negativity that this term has acquired, I would avoid fighting that battle within your personal statement. And I agree with the above posts, don't include biographical info unless it ties into the story of your art directly. And if you do, make sure it is unique to your story. For example, many people applying to programs have been interested in and pursuing an artistic practice since their childhood and have also had an abundance of art education. Tell the admissions committee how you are different from the giant mass of BFA-holders also applying. I know, it's hard, I'm struggling to get the beginnings of my drafts worked out as well. It's so painful!! >_< Best of luck!!!