Rimbaud III wrote:I have a couple of art-school trained friends, and I don't think it's fair that they should all be characterised as psuedish try-hards.

Sure, we've all met self-important pricks that think that they're going to be the next Matthew Barney, but in my experience there are more art students out there who just get on with the business of making shit derivative and not making a fuss about themselves.

I've had more objectionable experiences with English students.

If anything Music Tech students are the worst i've met, they use phrases like "phat" in reference to a "bassline" that usually occured at "2 in the morning" when they were "mash up"

*shudder*

If you like the art school comedy, you might like this upcoming comedy.

http://www.artschoolconfidentialmovie.com/

Based on Dan Clowes Art School Confidential comic.

Like art schools but think that they perform some good but in some cases they train people for professions that don't exist in as much as they are money making operations. A lot of schools now have sequencial art masters degrees. A broader degree would be better. In most cases the successful students may not need the college experence and the unsuccessful ones could have better used a acounting degree.

Bartok wrote:

Rimbaud III wrote:I have a couple of art-school trained friends, and I don't think it's fair that they should all be characterised as psuedish try-hards.

Sure, we've all met self-important pricks that think that they're going to be the next Matthew Barney, but in my experience there are more art students out there who just get on with the business of making shit derivative and not making a fuss about themselves.

I've had more objectionable experiences with English students.

If anything Music Tech students are the worst i've met, they use phrases like "phat" in reference to a "bassline" that usually occurred at "2 in the morning" when they were "mash up"

*shudder*

Ha! I have a friend that went to the Bass Institute of Technology, and our arguments usually consist of me arguing the case for treble-y bass played with a pick. This guy, he likes to play with his bass under his chin and using anything other than his bare fingers, it is the sacrilege! This makes his boat float!

Big John wrote:Like art schools but think that they perform some good but in some cases they train people for professions that don't exist in as much as they are money making operations. A lot of schools now have sequencial art masters degrees. A broader degree would be better. In most cases the successful students may not need the college experence and the unsuccessful ones could have better used a acounting degree.

This is something I've heard about from an art-school acquaintance. She's attended lectures emphasising the importance of documenting everything. It appears (and this certainly seems to be the case if you wander round galleries in the East End) that everyone wants to be a conceptual or video artist. This isn't a particularly fruitful endeavor if you want to make money from your work - it either ceases to exists after it's happened or multiple digital copies of it devalue it anyway!

These artists are all capitalists!

I voted with the crowd, despite having been an art student myself.

i've always viewed going to art school as a little hedonistic. i mean, for a lot of people going to art school would be really fun, but the world just doesn't need any more mediocre art. designers, architects, photographers? yes, the world has practical uses for these people. but painters? sculpters? i'm sorry but unless you're extremely talented and disciplined please go and study something useful. although most of these people end up waiting tables anyway so i guess in the long run they're providing some service to society.

I think it's important to say that Fine Arts students at a University are different then any arts students at an art school.

Then again, I happen to be a student at a private art school and I happen to despise universities. I also happen to despise most of my classmates.

I'm going to have to take the exact center-- we probably are a bit removed from reality. Which isn't uncommon anywhere. Any of you drink?

NOT CRAP. Too-long explanation to follow...

I enjoyed ART SCHOOL very much. It was a fine 4-1/2 years. I met some awesome people there, some of which I'm still friends with now, 10 years later. That's pretty cool. One thing that I experienced with ART SCHOOL that I don't know if I would expect from STATE SCHOOL or TRADE SCHOOL (or for that matter MENIAL LABOR or THE MILITARY) was being surrounded by so many seriously creative and inspirational people. Yeah, there were rich kids who didn't wanna be pragmatic about life and would rather draw... I'm sure that sorta thing is limited to ART SCHOOL, right? But hey... watching people within my group of friends have new things almost constantly coming into their lives because of each other was really cool.

For example, Mike used to just draw, and Dave used to draw comic characters and also paint. But when they became roommates with Nate (who was a truly gifted photographer), Mike started taking pictures, and Nate and Mike were both painting all the time, too. Mike had earlier started playing guitar, largely because I was doing it all the time. When they all were painting, I fucked around with it a little, too. Dave picked up bass at one point, and could still have a great time fucking around with it, though he later found drums which is more his thing...

Did any of them think they were super-hip, super-talented artists that were better than everybody else? Not that I noticed. It was just a lot of people riffing on each other's creative sparks.

10 years later, Mike is still playing guitar like mad, and has become quite a photographer as well. He was an EMT for years, but seems a lot happier now that he's painting fancy houses for a living. Dave still paints, and has sold paintings for over a thousand bucks! Nate died in a car crash when he was in his mid 20's, but his art is still alive in a lot of people's hearts and their actions as well. It's still really sad, because Nate was always such an inspiration to everyone around him, always creating and looking at the world through really special eyes. He was a great man that lived a really beautiful life and made a lot of other people's lives better for him having been a part of them.

So right there, that's the heart of my ART STUDENT experience. Based on some of the vitriol thrown out so far on this thread, I'd venture to say that people who adamantly hate ART SCHOOL or hate ART STUDENTS are maybe more pretentious than the people I spent those great years with. D'OH!

That's just my immediate friends. Casey and Chandler from 90 Day Men are a couple nice guys I met briefly then, and have enjoyed some conversations with since. I didn't know it at the time, but there were some really nice guys I became friends with later in life who were attending this same school at the same time, Fred Popolo and Jeremy Lemos... and I don't know a whole ton of people in music that I would say I respect more than those guys! I do not believe they embody "pretentiousness" in any way.

I learned a lot about recording music and about sound in general from some great teachers; the ones who jump to mind the quickest are Malcolm Chisholm and Doug Jones. Two very different people that together represented a massive resource, as far as me learning stuff goes. Okay, maybe Malcolm thought he was better than everybody else in one way shape or form. Looking at the strength and size of his catalog, and the fact that he largely bailed on the music business because the disco era sickened him, I think he deserved to think of himself however he chose. I forget which of his peers it was that I heard say this (it may have been Doug, actually), but it went something like "Malcolm will never die, he will eventually be dragged down, back into the earth, by the weight of his own balls". I greatly cherish what I learned from him about recording music. Him and Doug, both.

Maybe Columbia's just atypical for an ART SCHOOL. The first thing anyone ever told me at Columbia was that the most important thing about attending college there would be networking... because the people that are your peers in school today are your fellow working professionals tomorrow. I guess that's probably something that sets Columbia apart, the strong focus on building skills that are useful for working real jobs in the real world.



If it wasn't for my "Sound" degree from this ART SCHOOL, I would never have gotten the job I've had for the past 5 years. It pays well, and all our government contracts seem to be intact for years to come. I am very fortunate to have this job.

ART STUDENTS, at the wonderful ART SCHOOL, you are NOT CRAP! If I could go back and do it again, I would go to the exact same ART SCHOOL I went to, and if anything would try and meet *more* of my fellow students.

BTW, the "NOT CRAP" option in this poll is stupid. Make one that says "NOT CRAP" without the pretentious bullshit written before it, and that's the one I'd click.

I love art students.

I so nearly voted crap, and then I remembered how much I love them.

I love their wacky ideas and their wacky clothes and wacky hair. I like getting drunk with them and having wacky conversations. I worry about art students when they walk home drunk with their scruffy portfolios under their arm.

I love their company.