Formal art education, again

[Kimber Scott]

Lacy,

I don't know how to answer your poll. I just got my degree, but I did not learn anything about HOW to paint at university. I was lucky to have found one teacher , R. K. Hillis, at the community college level who was actually interested in and worked very hard at teaching his students. He gave me a solid foundation. A foundation I hoped others at university would help me build upon, but the university art program is horribly lacking in matters of technicality. They don't do "HOW." If you ask "How do I do this?" the answer will more likely be something like, "Just do it," or "I don't know, figure it out." Another good one is, "If I tell you how to do it, then I will just be telling you how to do it." And, the all time classic, "I don't want to teach people to paint just like me. They need to learn to paint like themselves."

So, no. University art programs are not for learning about HOW to paint. A lot of the teachers don't know HOW themselves, because they went through a university art program. The value I recieved from the university was not in the studio, but in the art history classes. There I learned why people painted and what they were saying when they did it. This is where the value is, in studying the artists' work who came before you and trying to figure out where you will fit into that story. (Although, admittedly, the story is only half told. Modernist thought has had a tendency to edit history. You will be delighted, I'm sure to know, however, art historians are digging out and dusting off the Bouguereau's and the women artists who have so sadly been forgotten.) There is also value in learning the methods of these artists. They don't really go into great detail about methods, but they give you enough of a glimpse, you know where to start looking for further information.

A couple months ago, I entered two paintings in my city's "Celebration of Artists" show. Low and behold, my old teacher, Hillis, had a painting in the show as well. When I saw him at the reception I lamented the lack of training I was getting at university. He laughed. - He, himself, was brought up through the university's abstract expressionist movement. He actually went so far as to receive his doctorate, (which by the way, they don't offer anymore) and he's been teaching for over 30 years.. You' might be surprised to know he is a realist painter. He says he had to teach himself HOW to paint. (He read a lot - Bridgeman, Loomis, et.al. - and has attended workshops with Greene and Leffel, et.al., over the years.) - Anyway, he said, "You already know how to paint. Now all you need to do is paint a couple hundred paintings."

This was a very inspirational thing for him to say to me, especially considering he is not one to sugarcoat anything and can be very critical at times. I truly believe what he said. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. Here's the bottom line:

You will not learn HOW to paint in a public university setting, but you will learn a lot of valuable peripheal information. If you want to learn the technicalities, you will have to find that information on your own - through forums like this, through books, through workshops with artists you admire, ateliers and most importantly through expirementation and practice.

Would teaching the technicalites at universities improve their program? Heck, YES! A million times "yes!"

Ok. So, that's the answer to your poll. Now you see why I really couldn't pick an answer from the list!

Kimber