Graduation

Graduation at an art college is much like graduation anywhere else.  You sit and listen to speeches, go up and get your diploma... or rather the leather binding your diploma will eventually be in, shake a couple hands, throw your hats, and eat food.  Sounds pretty normal right.  Only it's not completely normal.  Art colleges can have some unique quirks in their ceremonies that you often don't find anywhere else.

Firstly, there is no real dress code.  I've been to graduations from two separate art colleges and the students and professors alike ended up wearing some pretty bazar clothing at points.  I recall very vividly a school dean with a plumed top hat and a student wearing roller blades at one of the graduations.

Secondly, the speeches can be anything from normal to activist.  Artists professors have been known to make shameless plugs about their own artwork or an upcoming show in the middle of a graduation speech.  And the valedictorian is either motivational or downright activist.  The head of our class gave a very memorable speech about civil rights and getting along as a community.  Although starting a graduation speech with a movement that has long since outlived its purpose was perhaps more popular with the parents than it was with the students, no one felt it was too terribly out of place.

But by far the most different thing about a graduation at an art school is the exhibition.  Every year, art colleges will have an exhibition of the student art work that they will show to the parents.  This can either include the BFA students or the MFA students, but whomever gets the honor of showing off their work at graduation, the fact remains that there's always a show to see.

So, in the end, after all is said and done, you have a graduated art class.  Now if only finding jobs were as easy.

Art Professor Syndrome

I'm perhaps a rare case in art school, since I have explored the most extreme parts of design art, the extreme parts of fine art, and also the most conservative. So it's odd in a way, but I have been in the class of nearly every kind of professor you can imagine, and even some you can't.

I was once in a class at the state school I was attending over the summer when the subject of a professor talking about sex came up. And as I listened to these university students give this professor a dressing down, I couldn't help but mention that our art professors sometimes had entire body of works simply on that same subject alone. They were completely floored.

And while I imagine that normal professors are expected at a state college, I couldn't help but wonder about all the different types that I've encountered.

So here's my list (and I won't name names--obviously):

1: A seventy-year old hippie who loves life and everyone in it. This professor is the perfect array of helpfulness, happiness, and random rays of sunshine in his basement studio classroom. And his advice is actually helpful.

2: This man, though married, loves his students more than anything in the world (except his son of course), and is like the father of a family. He's kind, helpful, but occasionally scolding.

3: This man is young, handsome, single, kind, and loves the imagination. It's a wonder none of his students have tried to claim him yet.  He's also a little bit of a pushover.  But in relation to #2, he would be the charming uncle.

4: This man is foolish and likes to make friends with his students. He's lax on deadlines, and will take circumstances into consideration.

5: This woman is the go-getter. Unlike many, she listens (perhaps much more than she should). She stands up for what she thinks is right and expects you to do the same. She also has a harsh bark and an equally nasty bit, with an imagination that often runs away with her.

6: This woman is usually easy-going until annoyed or threatened. She then becomes increasingly hostile. She can be calculating, but like many others, she's unorganized and procrastinates horribly, so the better results of her plans are sometimes dashed.

7: This woman has no concept of reality or really the world she's in. She's a nice person when outside of the classroom, but has no patience and changes her mind frequently. Regardless of her fickle nature, she is overly harsh in her judgements, and apologizes for nothing.  She also has a nature to persevere.

8: This man is often most happy when left alone or able to explain or work in a subject he loves. He sometimes overturns safety to get a better result in technique. He expects the best from his students, but is always fair. In personality he is adventurous and daring (probably more daring than most people in the world), and yet he is quiet, reserved, and intelligent. If you ever meet him, he may also appear a little lonely at times.

9: This professor is quiet and very intelligent. She also is one of the most open-minded people that anyone can probably ever meet in their lifetime. She listens to everything, usually remaining in a calm, sunny disposition unless you get on her bad side.

10: This professor is slightly egotistical, but he loves to learn. He has a vast array of knowledge and hates when people try to cheapen that knowledge, but for the most part he is reserved, soft spoken, and even slightly dry in demeanor.

11: This man is the definition of nerd. He loves to learn. He loves to see his students learn. He constantly bombards and is bombarded with a vast array of cultural and artistic knowledge. His opinions are valuable, but attempting to sort out fact from opinion is a challenge.

12: This woman is slightly odd. She makes jokes about strange happening with herself and her life, and sees the humor as well as the crap in society. Surprisingly, she is known for being well versed in the martial arts, and displays her hardened skill and mind frame in her personality. She is, however, a kind and slightly lonely woman. If you know her for even a short time, she will remember you forever.

13: This woman is the definition of "old and crusty," without being totally unkind.  She believes what she believes and she will never change. You either conform to her ideas (and she'll love you for it), or you don't and she will genuinely hate you for it. She choses favorites and has no qualms about it.

14: This woman is kind and happy in every definition of the word. She loves to explore and to learn. So much so, in fact, that she always appears to have one foot in a completely different world. She appears meek, enthusiastic, and careless with half-baked teaching methods. But truly, her students learn tons by the sheer curiosity and enthusiasm that she sparks, rather than the threat of difficult testing or punishment.

15: This man is extremely reserved, pushed into an environment where he doesn't quite ever fit in, except among the students he teaches (who share his enthusiasms). He is always helpful, always patient and willing to repeat things again and again without fail. He also has no need to pile on the extra work. He believes that understanding comes with time and practice.

16: This woman loves to learn about people, and about cultures. She will speak to anyone in any language, and has a twinkle in her eye when she learns something new. Trying to convince her you don't understand, though, can be a completely different matter.

I'm sure I am forgetting a few people, but here you go... the professors at an art college.

Senior Thesis

Among all the insane projects and crazy hours that you spend at an art school, there is one project that is more extensive and taxing than any other--the BFA Exhibition Project. For the BFA, a student must create a large scale project that ultimately signifies what he/she has learned while in school. Unlike the normal state college Bachelor Degree program, the BFA project is a requirement for Undergraduates too. And unlike your standard 50-150 page thesis paper where you hand the end result in to your professor and it gets shelved somewhere (or if you're very lucky, published), the BFA project is viewed by the entire college, your family, and most likely all the employers of the jobs you apply for in the next two to five years. No pressure.

What makes the BFA in my college so hard to manage isn't just the project itself (although that's a good part of it). It's also the extensive paperwork and the concept behind it. Getting two separate professors to sign off on your idea is hard enough. Trying to convince them time and time again that the idea is good and when it's done it'll be even better, is harder.

For this reason, around the start of the Spring semester, every Senior starts to freak out. For many, they worry about what kind of idea they should use for their project, what medium it should be. They worry that it won't be good enough, and that maybe they won't have the slightest clue what to even begin making. For my department it's different. We start a semester before. By the time the rest of the school begins to start thinking about the BFA show, we're already Animating/Filming on our projects. That doesn't keep us from freaking out though. Instead of flipping out about concept and ideas, we lose our minds over execution. Can we get the piece done in time? Will it be good enough? Did we make everything that needed to be made before hand? In the end, we can only hope that nothing goes wrong and everything pays off. And when it's all over, we can finally take a few days and sleep. Thank god for the small things.

~C.Mitchell

Never Ending Revisions

So anyone who has ever been in art school knows that unlike papers that you write, read through, edit, and then turn in for a grade, never to be touched again... revisions to art pieces never really end. Grades or almost completely subjective in Art School. Sure, you can do the work and give it your best and sometimes that's good enough, but most of the time it's not. You may walk into a classroom with what you think is a finished project, and by the time you walk out, you'll have a hundred things to change or have to start over completely. It's almost enough to make you crazy. So how do you keep any inspiration when you have professors who throw your hard work back in your face time and time again, or tell you that you're idea is crap or the person you're drawing can't physically bend that direction in real life?

Well... sometimes stress is your only sense of inspiration, followed by frustration and humor. And sometimes there is no motivation. Nothing is harder than working on an art project where you're asked to make your own concept and you're mind is grinding on nothing. You have to work, because the project has to get done... But you have nothing to say. You have no message to give anyone and no motivation. In those situations, coupled with a mass amount of sleepless nights, sometimes will power is the only fuel you have left. But at the end of it all, you're still alive, and somehow most of the time, you pull through.

So that test that you never studied for, or that paper that you wrote in a night... well, we'll let it slide this once, because lets face is, Art School is hard. And when we are inspired, and we do have the time to really buckle down and act like a normal college student, we might just surprise you...