Art Schools - What innovative programs are not stuck in the ways of RISD, SAIC, Parsons, etc?

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
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Altho to add in a funny aside (and not to start/add to debate since I can see merits in both schools of thought…) D1 is illustration major at RISD and was telling how a friend who’s a double major with sculpture was complaining about how conceptual the sculpture program was. Illustrators had an assignment drawing emotions where they weren’t supposed to draw any cute animals EXCEPT for one example and the friend drew an adorable pic of someone hugging a huge pile of puppies. Meanwhile this student sells alot of cute felt things online and joked if she ever brought anything like that to her sculpture class she’d be treated with disdain.

Classmates were all joking that this summed up their two departments with:
Sculpture = what is that cute crap?
Illustrators = AWWWWW PUPPIES!

;D

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I do like conceptual art. But as I study the artists I really like I find they started as “fine art” artists with a real grasp of technique. And I think that is what school is for. School is for skills, learning technique, exploring materials and developing an original style. The conceptual part is at the end of their journey as an artist, not at the beginning.
My favorites “conceptual” art is actually a distilling of fine art skills akin to editing a too long written work.

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"Illustrators had an assignment drawing emotions where they weren’t supposed to draw any cute animals EXCEPT for one example and the friend drew an adorable pic of someone hugging a huge pile of puppies. "

Kids and animals always steal the show. It’s a cliche and a fact. No quicker way to grab the heart strings. Very universal. But that’s okay–those images make people happy and I can’t imagine a better way to to spend my time.

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@gouf78 I agree with you that I expect an artist to have those technical skills and learn them in art school. To be honest, I am often surprised at how many skills my daughter refined during her foundation year at NYU. She is a sculptor and I seldom see her paint on a canvas, illustrate or sketch. But when she does, I am reminded of how talented she really is in many areas. She has been primarily working in clay, resin, wax and a range of other found materials. As a sculptor major, she was given a strong background in wood working, metal working, ceramics and mold-making, even though she does not necessarily use those techniques in all of her own work. She often paints her work instead of using conventional glazes, so I do see glimpses of the range of her skills in many of her pieces, even though they are conceptual and unconventional.

I think before art students assume conceptually based programs do not teach skills, they should look at the courses offered by those schools. I think they will see that technical skills are being taught in most BFA programs.

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@gouf78 I agree with you that I expect an artist to have those technical skills and learn them in art school. To be honest, I am often surprised at how many skills my daughter refined during her foundation year at NYU. She is a sculptor and I seldom see her paint on a canvas, illustrate or sketch. But when she does, I am reminded of how talented she really is in many areas. She has been primarily working in clay, resin, wax and a range of other found materials. As a sculptor major, she was given a strong background in wood working, metal working, ceramics and mold-making, even though she does not necessarily use those techniques in all of her own work. She often paints her work instead of using conventional glazes, so I do see glimpses of the range of her skills in many of her pieces, even though they are conceptual and unconventional.

I think before art students assume conceptually based programs do not teach skills, they should look at the courses offered by those schools. I think they will see that technical skills are being taught in most BFA programs.

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once again factually incorrect!

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@stones3 Not sure what’s inaccurate. Was that addressed to me? And why the “once again?”

Just curious about something. Upon your recommendation, I checked out the VCU website for sculpture and was very impressed. The portfolio pieces were excellent and showed imagination, creativity and good technique. But it is certainly a conceptual program. As I’ve been trying to say, that does not mean that skills are not taught and used by artists. This is why your statement above confuses me, because it seems to imply that programs can’t be conceptual and teach technique.

Would love further clarification of what you think of VCU’s sculpture program as it is conceptual and describes itself as such.

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ukoolfish- wasn’t directed at you , rather the troll.

As stated many times , our D is a Graphic Design major and that’s what we are most familiar with. I mention the sculpture program because I know it is the top ranked program in the country, and I know a student that spent last summer working for Universal Studios as an example of real like application. I am not really concerned with the
“conceptual vs technique” discussion. All I know is the program is good, students learn and many are employable.

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Well, I checked out the VCU site too.

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@stones3–
“and I know a student that spent last summer working for Universal Studios as an example of real like application”

Out of curiosity how was their experience and what did they actually work on?

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^^ Well, illustration is an applied art and the public loves puppies so. . . :wink:

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@Ugimom I’ve visited a similar list of schools with both my kids (K1 currently a sophomore at RISD and K2 hs junior also looking at concept art/entertainment art too)…the only thing that comes to mind is K2 really liked the idea that LCAD did NOT have a foundation year (ie you go right into your major); especially after hearing K1 moan and groan about her experiences. :wink:

However I teach in an art department and see both the pros and cons of foundation year for a lot of students.

Also we’ve heard rumor that the earlier you apply to MICA (they have two EA deadline dates), the better chances for more merit aid.

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@JBStillFlying Yes! I think the issue at the core of many of these conversations is that there is a lack of understanding between what constitutes the fine arts and the applied arts–and a lack of acceptance that many of the art programs being criticized are primarily FINE art programs, not applied art programs.

The fine arts are arts that in essence have no functional value other than aesthetics or intellectual inquiry. So by its nature, it is not a profession that lends itself to many career paths. Fine artists can sell their artwork. One can earn money as an artist assistant. There are related positions that fine artists can take that do not involve art-making-- like working in a gallery and selling art. Or being a curator. One can also teach the fine arts in various school settings.
Whether one is a realistic or conceptual artist, a painter or an installation artist, all of this is only a difference of aesthetics or intellectualization. The end result is the same–you are not creating art for functionality.

Applied arts is art that is functional and created for that reason. “The term “applied art” refers to the application (and resulting product) of artistic design to utilitarian objects in everyday use. Works of applied art are usually functional objects which have been “prettified” or creatively designed with both aesthetics and function in mind. Applied art embraces a huge range of products and items, from a teapot or chair, to the walls and roof of a railway station or concert hall, a fountain pen or computer mouse.”

Graphic arts, illustration, product design, and most craft arts all fall under this umbrella. There are many career paths that one can pursue.

So going back to the original OP @atlascentaur and the original question–perhaps it really needs to ask, " why are art schools stuck in the fine arts, rather than the applied arts?" In that way, one can accept that the fine arts–whether it is labeled traditional, realistic or conceptual-- is never intended to be “practical” or tied to job functions.

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In terms of why I started this thread, I would disagree with that change @uskoolfish. My issue with art schools off-track is that they’ve turned art into philosophy. The result is a whole spate of graduates who primarily teach and seem to continue to push the idea that visual art is dead but statement art is the only art.

We’ve lost sight of the fact that fine art must live on it’s own visually and that we must respond purely to that art. And there’s a far wider range of fine art than is taught in art schools.

I say this as good friends with many, many fine artists - and we talk about their true experience as makers of art (with some outstanding success) vs the strangely warped experience students find at art schools. One of these friends is primarily a private art instructor and each of his classes is filled with students needing to break out of the narrow boundaries imposed by art school and return to the visuals and emotional.

There is ALSO an issue in applied arts. But that was not the original intent.

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Most artwork reflects a particular philosophy but art as philosophy itself points to finding value in the process. In this case, the work itself is like a thesis, and pulling it apart to examine the details is like the body of a philosophical work. You study it and gain insight from connecting the dots. I’d have such artwork in my library rather than above the fireplace in my living room. For the latter, I’d prefer something that attracts the viewer or adds to the overall “feel” of the room - so definitely something more aestheticly pleasing or emotional (or transcendenty moving, if appropriate). Perhaps the issue is not so much the different aesthetic approaches (intellectual vs. stirring or moving) as it is the purpose of the piece. Is it supposed to encourage you to think logically? To see the impossible or the absurd? To think of higher truths? To value the beautiful? Only if the piece matches the purpose is the work successful as a humanistic endeavor. This commonsense principle is much more easily observed in the applied arts / design disciplines where functionality is so very crucial to the overall success of the work but it probably holds in the areas of fine art as well. Not sure why fine art CANNOT be an academic work as creativity can take many forms and it can be just as challenging to present a “rational” piece as an “expressive or emotive” one. Both speak to and make use of our human faculties.

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“So I’m looking for ideas for my son’s future… Where are the schools who see art and art education differently from how badly entrenched many of the so-called “top” schools are?”

Above is the only question posed in your original post. It is introduced by a lament that the traditionally elite art schools teach only concept and not “fine art”. Responding posts dispute this, providing intellectual, philosophical, and anecdotal basis for opposition. Yet, you persist in not only harping on this distinction, to the point of seemingly perceiving a total schism between conceptual and, dare I say, the Platonic Form of Fine Art. The intra-thread discussions are often abstract to the point of being meaningless, using amorphous terms, e.g., “philosophical art”, that are never truly defined or even expanded upon.

Those of us with children currently in top art schools (posters on this thread alone include parents with kids at RISD, Pratt, SCAD, and more), strongly disagree with your position that our kids are swimming in a morass of concept with no purely artistic merit. This is simply not the case and is strongly refuted by the empirical evidence represented by the body of the students’ work, their classroom and internship experiences, as well as by the academic messages conveyed by professors.

Your references to famous, rich and high-powered artists reminds me of the psychiatrist who’s final stage of human development is lamenting the decaying morality of the young. To me this is simply a retroactive perception of current student art as conceptual versus the “purer” art these now ‘adult’ artist needing to believe they alone create. However, the primary underpinnings of this perception are that conceptual art is somehow inferior to fine art (your terms), and that creating the former somehow negates creating the latter. This is simply not true.

In looking toward your son’s future, if you persist in viewing an unmitigated separation between concept and fine art, by all means seek your artistic Camelot where fine art exists in a vacuum void of concept. IMHO, this is Quixotic simply because the human mind seeks intent, purpose and meaning, and rarely creates solely from some font of purely artistic ether. In any case, however, the irony here from my reading, is that your son sounds like a techy! He sounds more suited for RIT, SVA or Ringling, studying Animation, 3D Computer Art, and the like, than at a more traditional “fine arts” school parsing the brush strokes of da Vinci, Pollock or van Gogh, trying to feel the artist’s emotional creativity, beyond time and meaning.

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That’s a fairly noxious reply. And I hear it. But will make my own choices based on clear observation of art, artists, and what it takes to succeed. You can call it Quixotic. I’ll just observe that’s the typical name calling from those living within stale and stagnant silo’s call things that make them uncomfortable.

That said, I’ve found this thread useful in understanding more deeply how to guide my son as he approaches establishing the life he wants - which is far more than a degree.

Cheers…

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it seems to me (and I am not an artist) that most of the top programs are about developing the individuals critical thinking . Corporate America is seriously interested in adding individuals capable of critical thinking.