How important should an ART EDUCATION be?

[john falkenstine]

Kim, very good netsite and a mix of trained and untrained artists. But: it also shows an issue: Those on the netsite who have had some kind of education / training are showing a different kind of "art" And what I'm specifically after are 2 main items: a sense of "depth" or "space" in their products and the ability to generate faces or features that are more than just lines progressing in the X and Y spaces. i.e. flat faces which I call smudge art. (but considered art nonetheless which is fine with me) As a result MANY of the works generated by the folks on that netsite have a boring similarity to each other, because regardless of color or composition, they are all trapped in the same space...having a sense of the 3rd dimension is a critical jump some artists never make. Interestingly one of the parties, who has a technical background, makes the images with the 3rd dimension and a sense of depth but....ALL of them are repeats of each other with details replaced by other details, as if it is some kind of parts bin in a garage. Is there creativity and art on the netsite? I would say certainly, fer sure, fer sure. But nothing really radically new or different from what I see locally over and over again that would motivate me to purchase one of these items to hang up for display in my house, or offer up for sale in an Art Gallery in which I briefly partnered.

[byronlawrence]

I don't want to consider myself an artist, and not because I think it is some mystical anything. also I don't think I would take your class. I have taken plenty of classes to be an 'engineer'. I don't take photos with the intention of being an 'artist'. to put it in perspective: If I wrote a poem, I wouldn't just call myself a poet. same with photography, I take pictures a lot, but most of them are for myself,, friends and family, weekend trips. or maybe I take those 'artsy pictures for fun... like the one below I took while dropping the kids off at the pool while I was at work.. or number 2 to some poeple. :)

 

I am going to call it cell phone picture art, and I can be an artist now. ... no education. :)<div></div>

[beeman458]

"I have taken plenty of classes to be an 'engineer'."

 

Fair enough but are you trying to say that the Mackinac bridge isn't art and the designer, Dr. David B. Steinman wasn't an artist?

 

http://en.structurae.de/persons/data/index.cfm?id=d000035

 

http://www.mackinacbridge.org/

[byronlawrence]

no, but now that you bring it up I wouldn't call him an artist. but I would call that bridge artistic.

 

but that is just me.

[beeman458]

And you're trying to say that his solutions for the winds weren't poetic?

[beeman458]

An art education really messed me up as I was quite happy being ignorant.

 

One day I decided to educate myself and I've been messed up ever since.

 

I was happy making superficial, pretty, formulaic pictures with no content other than "Gee golly wow Batman, ain't that cool." But no, I had to go and screw it up by getting an education:O Making pretty calender pictures is easy, infusing them with content is hard. How hard can it be I thought, cause it looked easy.

 

" I don't think that an art education and strong background in art history should be a pre-requisite or be relevent to the process and production of art."

 

It's never been a "pre-requisite but unfortunately, one can't know where they stand in the scheme of things unless they know where they stand and only the stupid can be happy not knowing where they stand.

 

When you think about it, being artistically ignorant is much like being kicked out of a plane, unknowingly, on the other side of the equator, after an unknown number of hours of flying, no map or compass in which to give you a clue where you're at once you land and the person throwing you out of the plane yelling over the din of the plane's engines, "BE HAPPY!" Boot!

 

Ignorance is both convenient and blissful. Convenient cause you don't have to try and blissful cause you don't have to know. But once you become dissatisfied with your ignorance, there's only one solution and once you solve your ignorance, you'll eternally be dissatisfied because the result is never good enough.

 

It's one thing to be ignorant but you can never fix stupid:)

[byronlawrence]

well My interpretation of the question was a whether Formal education in the arts is necessary for anybody to create art. Personally I don't think it is necessary.

 

However, an informal education, at the very least, is probably necessary to appreciate much art in existence, and I don't intend to debate that because I am not uneducated enough to know what it is like to view art and not know what I am looking at. I have at least some education in the arts (not formal, books, tv, more books, art museums, more books... unless you count high school art classes formal) and it helps me to appreciate much art that I would otherwise not care about... like the ninja turtles. I still think though, that even an informal education isn't necessary to create any art unless you are speaking of an education on the creation process.

 

if I found art created by some un-educated fool, however ignorant he/she may be, that I liked, I would still call it art and I wouldn't invalidate it just because the guy is ignorant of the Mona lisa, or who Rembrandt was. I have seen too many people with 'art' degrees create crap by just painting a canvas all black or spashing paint on a canvas that is the size of a house get famous doing something that any common 4yr old could probably do better, to take an 'art' degree seriously, because the fools who buy the results think it is valid art just because the maker took a class. yea call the bridge art if you like, it is impressive and really, it reminds me of galloping Girdy across the Tacoma Narrows. but even if you call it 'art' it requires education way beyond 'historic art appreciation' on MWF 1:30 to 3:30 in so and so building in room 7638.

 

to state my position clearly, I DO think a Formal education in art would be helpful, if not necessary if one were planning to persue a life or career in art. but I DON'T think it is necessary for the creation of art.

 

as an aside about the bridge you mention. the solution for the winds isn't poetic unless you have a lot of education in math and structures, and wind dynamics. It is very likely (I don't know this) that Steinman used a lot of already learned stuff from previous scientists and researchers, as well as analytical reviews of the failure of the tacoma narrows bridge, to come up with his 'solution' for negative dampening. you could call it poetic but I bet he wasn't thinking 'oh this poem is gonna be great' when he came up with it.

[beeman458]

His solution was to place in the center of the roadbed a two lane wide grating allowing the wind to pass through the roadbed reducing the sail effect.

 

Up to the time of the bridge placement, the highest winds were recorded at some 76-79 MPH, since, winds have been clocked at over a hundred. The bridge is designed up to 600 MPH. Time will tell on that one:)

[john falkenstine]

Thomas: some engineers are true creative artists. Others use data without questioning its validity. Luckily artists usually can't kill people with their product. Engineers can: here's a sample http://filebox.vt.edu/users/aschaeff/tay/tay.html

[beeman458]

I would hope, considering the nature/art of engineering and that over a hundred years have transpired since the occurance of the failure, steps have been put in place to keep these sorts of tragedies from taking place. Failure will occur but it will not stop.

 

To bring up the negative fails to mar the artistic nature of mechanical engineering and their poetic solutions to the seemingly insurmountable problems that lay in their path.

 

I don't understand how this or other structural failures negates the creation of these marvels from being declared art and prevents the designers from being called artists in their own right.

[byronlawrence]

really I don't see how bringing up bridges as art in the first place has anything to do with the original question. they are beautiful structures IMO but they require years of education and experience and working with teams of other people with the same, to design. and art degrees aren't necessary to design them. it doesn't really support or show evidence against whether you need education to create art.

[beeman458]

""I have taken plenty of classes to be an 'engineer'.""

 

"Fair enough but are you trying to say that the Mackinac bridge isn't art and the designer, Dr. David B. Steinman wasn't an artist?"

 

The point was that engineers, such as you lay claim to being, also make art and taking art classes can broaden one's engineering vision as opposed to being simple utilitarian pieces of equipment with no visionary design.

 

"Hey, it's a stupid bridge/building, it doesn't have to look good."

 

Can you say Frank Lloyd Wright, architechtural/landscape design, Palace of Versailles or iPod? Engineers are more then just pencil to paper, mechanical designers of no aesthetic vision.

[patrick j dempsey]

Take a look at any peice of mechanical equiptment manufactured during the early 1900s and tell me those arent functional sculptures!

<br><br>

<img src="http://www.tractorshed.com/photoads/upload/36856.jpg">

<br><br>

[john falkenstine]

The Artful spokes were there for a reason: To avoid cracking when the object cooled off after being poured in a mold.

[beeman458]

And what about all the flywheels that were cast with straight spokes that we see which were cast in the same time period? What kept them from cracking?

[john falkenstine]

Better Casting and you never see the broken ones...

[beeman458]

Boy, that's a none answer if I ever read one. Didn't answer the question as to what kept them from cracking.

 

I'm to believe that all the straight spoke'd flywheels which cracked were just recast and the foundries continued in this flawed process, wasting valuable manufacturing time in the process?

 

I don't think so. :)

[beeman458]

And yes I caught the "Better Casting" comment.

[roger_hicks1]

What is 'art education'?

 

I'd have thought that most people with an interest in art -- any art -- would be interested in its history and techniques and want to learn about them.

 

I'm also reasonably confident that art school isn't the best place to learn either. One of the best art historians/technicians I know is entirely self taught.

 

When I had a choice of law school or art school, I chose law school. I figured I could always pick up the photography later (preferably working as an assistant in a photographic studio, which is what I did), while a law degree would allow me to out-BS the art-school BS artists. I have seen nothing to change my opinion of that in 30+ years since.

 

All right, you can dismiss me as a 'tecchie' but I do sell the occasional picture and a surprising number of people (it surprises me) like my photography very much. I strongly suspect that if I had had a formal art education it would have made zero difference to my abilities as a photographer and I'd probably be even poorer than I am now.

 

Also bear in mind that I am now one of those who provides the education: I really felt I'd joined the pantheon when I was invited to contribute to the Oxford Companion to the Photograph, which has just come out. What price art education at this point?

 

Cheers,

 

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

[j.kivekas]

Ok, I haven't read all the messages - somebody's probably said this already:<br>

- It is said that you should first master the classic way (golden means, color circle, compositions etc.) before you can credibly break the classic rules. Makes sense, but may there can be exceptions?<br>

- Education makes your technique better. Makes perfect sense!<br>

- It is possible to self-educate, but it is seldom as efficient as being taught by a master - which is like a short cut.<p>

Conclusion: Education seldom does harm. Theoretically it may decrease originality, but it also increses credibility.

[roger_hicks1]

Dear Juha,

 

HOW does it increase credibility? And what is 'credibility' in art? This smacks of Tom Wolfe's book The Painted Word (or is it Tom Wolf? I can never remember if there's an 'e' or not).

 

Surely a work of art must stand or fall on its own merits: there is no other credibility. Indeed, only a poor artist needs to fall back on 'credibility'.

 

Learning from a master, yes, but that's more like an apprenticeship. Very few of the lecturers at art schools are great masters. And from all I have heard from friends who did go to art school (as I said above, I chose law school instead), the 'art history' is largely a history of schools of painting and 'isms', and very little about the history of how to paint. Let alone the history of photography.

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[beeman458]

Roger.

 

Thank you for opening this can of unsightly worms in your last; intentional or unintended.

 

Few here have taken the time or feel there's a need to learn about and understand the politics of photographic history and sans an understanding the history of photographic politics, one will "never" truly understand photographic history let alone the why of contemporary photographic history; since abount 1965-1970.

 

Many here who are supporting of the photographic arts, in their comments, intentionally or otherwise, leave out the true genesis of noted photographic art; art politics. Why because it will commonize the process as the "fraternizing" little secrets are let out of who's zooming who. In short, the devil is in the political details; power structure. I don't know if one could call the details pretty cause that's a subjective view point but the history is quite laughably interesting but again this too is subjective. Irrespective on how one perceives photographic art, one needs to take the time, care or not, to learn the historical politics behind the scenes which foisted the noted's to the front in order to really understand why an image is heralded as noted photographic art.

 

Sans the process of photographic politics, it's not photographic art and sans understanding the process, one can't understand the why of photographic art. In short, what makes it photographic art; surviving the crucible of photographic politics.

[roger_hicks1]

Dear Thomas,

 

Not intended, but I wish I had thought of it, because I feel VERY strongly about the politics of painting since about 1880, the rise of the '-isms'. Since WW2 they have been even more interesting; one of my friends holds the theory that abstract expressionism was a determined attempt to remove art from the realms of conventional politics and create a (non-threatening, to non-artists) political forum of its own.

 

In photography we saw the same rise of '-isms' and movements, and to a considerable extent since the 1960s it has been very much 'the painted word', or rather, the word as substitute for photograph. Then, of course, 'credibility' is all you need -- not talent or ability, at least in photography, though writing ability helps.

 

Cheers,

 

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

[beeman458]

"Not intended, but I wish I had thought of it, because I feel VERY strongly about the politics of painting since about 1880, the rise of the '-isms'."

 

Ramble on.

 

I take the split in painterly arts, first, back to the Renaissance, where the art world sidestepped religion, embracing humanism; the "Ancients;" Greece and Rome. But everything, because of religious political persecution by the misguided religious authorities, usurping the teachings of Jesus due to their terroristic, dogmatic and dictatorial government sponsored rule, this philosophical split was kept on the QT otherwise the Iron Maiden might become your next encounter.

 

The next poignant painterly schism ferreted out was in 1824 with the intellectual/spiritual/philosophical battle between the political conservative Ingles (Romanticism) associated w/classicizing or the then academic arts and Delacroix (Moderns or Progressive Humanists) as the representative of intellectuals, of revolution, of artistic anarchy.

 

The next schism was in the form of Dadaism 1915-1916 with the emergence of Postmodernism which was catapulted forward by Andre Breton and the introduction of Surrealism, the breaking from the real.

 

None of the above painterly politics had anything to do with photographic politics as the politics of photographic art was in the hands of others who had yet to embrace the Progressive-Humanist thought process. The Romantic/Impressionism split in photography came about at the time of Breton's Surrealism (freeing of the painterly real due to the superior ability of photography to render the real) as photographic politics developed parallel to painterly art on a differing timeline and yet somehow, survived within the same artistic crucible.

 

In my search to put a popsicle stick in it all, in overly simplistic terms, I see Stieglitz as the last of the noted Photographic Impressionist, a schism taking place in and about 1915 with Steichen's "Milk Bottle," as photographic art developed in a split intellectually between Paris/New York and the US West Coast; f/64.

 

I see Progressive-Humanists peaking in the form of Lisette Model and company who mentored Diane Arbus which I see as the "first" Postmodern photographic artist (the real Vs intellectual content) but it was because of her association/influence with/by others within the power structure which helped both form her think and bring her unique efforts to the forefront of notoriety.

 

The rest, shall we say, is history:)

 

Ramble off.

 

God how I love this stuff:)

[daniel_ob]

Mr. Hicks

 

Yes many get paper on Academy but there is no word on it as ?warranty?. Many comes but just a few will pass.

 

One can learn himself yes, and many do. But so many small details will be missed. It is one systematic learning. No one learn by education itself. Once got outside one have good foundation to learn further. He is directed and knows good literature to develop further. One attending good Academy develops his way of thinking and acceptance. Art do not accept missing of details. No missing my dear. No I am ?sorry.? No I will make it better next time. Why? Because artist do not make art for it does not exist. Art make other people looking at his work.

 

It is possible to one to learn all that stuff himself. But what afford? What time he needs to learn himself. To learn from who, which book to select? And so on. Life is too short. And learning himself is learning in chaotically way.

 

I just have to quote myself

 

?When you go to REAL (not two weeks) Academy of art you will learn so many rules, years, applying in some specific discipline of art. And just when happy picking up diploma getting to the door leads outside the academy building, your favorite professor says lifting his right arm: ?hey you, there is no rule, there is no such things as art, there are only artists. You will find no help outside there, you are alone from now on and do not forget rules I gave you " That moment your eyes will squeeze and you will push wrinkled diploma into your pocket. But to really understand it, a long way is in front.?

 

And just recently a photog with many nice picts in bakground asked me what is wrong with his Nikon F6 for its meter differ from seconic..? How long way he have to pass to understand such a simple answer. On Academy you learn densitometry,?, and it is just a foundation for further work (after Academy). I can tell you that I can make density exposure curve in around 30 min after you hand me your film. What I need is only a camera with lightmeter, no densitometer, no darkroom. You can just wonder how stupid I am for it will deviates a lot. No my dear. And that is I made using just basic things I learned in Academy. I learned it in real way (to be there and listen live words and ask what is not clear), not myself. Learning from guys that already passed the way I want to go. Learning yourself is like watching earthquake on TV. Never get that real filling.

 

Go to leica-r.com and see just one my photo. Is it art? Yes, it is. Why? But I said no such think as art exist! Iam sorry I do not have time to show many other but might be in January it will be be set somehow. I am not old guy and can recognize work that can be classified as artwork. How many years I need to achieve such degree without education if ever reach. Without education anyone can get to some level and than stop never reach into the top. I can give so many examples but my coffee is over. AGAIN: artist do not accept missings. My typing is for sure not work of art.