Structural Patterns

April 14, 2006
I’m currently teaching the senior BFA course leading to the students’ final exhibition.  Most of the semester has been dedicated to professional development – resume building, press release, cover letters, fund raising, residencies…  Last Wedensday however we discussed graduate school, as many of the students are interested in persuing an MFA.  So I assemebled a presentation/discussion that I think anyone considering grad school might find helpful.

After discussing their personal interests in attending grad school, I pointed out the US News Ranking for Graduate Schools that they do every four years:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/arts/artsindex_brief.php

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/tools/index_brief.php

Then I entered into my presentation/discussion based on personal experience:

Thinking About Grad School

It is helpful to consider Art in parallel to business or other professional areas in the sense that there are any number of ways of approaching a career in the Arts.  Here are a few scenarios to consider to help you along in your decision process:

Location versus Program:  “Do I go to a city with plenty of art and culture where I can use school to begin networking and launch me into an arts career in that city or do I go to a place where there may be less networking and the arts community may be smaller, but where I may have more time and space to focus and work?”

There are great programs where you will be able to focus, have a strong community with faculty and peers but are located in small cities, college towns or isolated rural areas. OR you may decide that being in a major city with a strong and diverse arts community comprised of a gallery district, several non-profits and available grants for artists is where you would like to go to grad school in order to begin to establish a lasting network, this primarily means schools in or near New York City or Los Angeles.  To use graduate school as an introduction to the art world on a national or international scope is amongst the primary reasons that people choose schools in or near NYC and LA as many of the faculty may be represented by galleries in these cities and can help introduce one to the galleries.  This of course can be particularly important to artists hoping to achieve an independent studio practice maintained by the sales of one’s work.  This question may point to differences between a school that is gallery oriented versus teaching oriented.

Theory versus Practice focused programs:  “Do I enjoy a research oriented practice informed by an understanding of cultural theory or do I prefer to jump right into the materials and allow the process to define the work?”

These two certainly are not mutually exclusive and less so as post-modernity is entirely indoctrinated into art instruction.  However some schools will offer a strong theoretical underpinning to help develop the conceptual strength of your work and put less emphasis in technical instruction.  These schools tend to be less conventional, have adopted a post-modern approach to art making and have little interest in craft.  Here is an example of a description by/of this type of program:

This interdisciplinary program prepares artists of all genres—film and video, painting, performance and installation and sculpture—to successfully enter the contemporary art arena. A significant proportion of its alumni have achieved international and national reputations.

(Art Center College of Design, MFA description)

More traditional programs divide their areas by medium – one must apply to painting, or sculpture, or photography, etc.  These schools may put a greater focus on technical skills and the development of one’s chosen craft and less emphasis on theoretical and conceptual background.

Strong craft oriented programs: Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan – http://www.cranbrookart.edu/

Alfred University

Where would you like to situate yourself in the arts:

Do you envision yourself as an artist working in a creative field with a company, such as a design firm, an ad and publicity company, an animation or film house…?

Do you envision yourself as an independent artist with a personal studio?

Would you seek to establish a relationship with a gallery?

Would you seek a teaching position to split your time between teaching and studio work?

Would you seek to maintain a studio through freelance work…?

Would you prefer to establish yourself as a regional artist with an emphasis in         establishing roots in a specific community?

Would you prefer to establish international credentials?

Would you prefer a studio practice versus a site specific practice versus a community         based practice?

Are you an object maker versus a time-based artist (performance, electronic arts)?

Check out real estate cost in the area

Financial Reality

The point of graduate school is to seriously focus in your work as an artist, without the dilemma and distraction of a full-time job.  Consider grad school your full-time job, if you are unwilling to do so, it’s most likely not worth your money or time to attend a graduate school in Fine Arts.  Look for programs that offer generous funding and positions as teacher’s assistant.

Personal Suggestions:
• Take time off from school to test your dedication and perseverance – will you continue producing work without the framework of school?
• Be willing to live minimally or simply in order to give yourself time to continue developing your work without the strain of a full-time job.
• When it comes to applying to grad school ‚Äì  research the faculty at the school, look at the work they have produced, look at the work of the current grad students, find information on the facilities, does the school provide generous funding for their graduate students, make an appointment to visit the school if possible, and of course request all their materials.
• Go to the program that offers you the most money, avoid debt if possible.
• With or without graduate school, a career in the arts requires a great deal of perseverance, dedication, and patience.  It is important to establish sustainable systems for your work and yourself.
• It is useful to create for yourself a three year plan: where would you like to be in three years, what do you need to accomplish now to get to that point?  After the first three years, evaluate where you are and your personal satisfaction/happiness/accomplishments and establish a new three-year program.  Eventually the three-year plan may become a five-year plan.

Noteworthy Programs in the United States

The two “art centers”:

New York

Columbia University

City University of New York Hunter

School of Visual Arts (SVA)

Pratt Institute

Bard College, http://www.bard.edu/mfa/

Yale University

Rhode Island School of Design

NYU

Parsons

Los Angeles

University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA)

Art Institute

California Institute of the Arts

Art Center College of Design

University of Southern California (film)

Cities that are considered more “regional”:

Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago

University of Chicago

San Francisco

San Francisco Art Institute

California College of the Arts

Mills College

San Jose State

San Francisco State

San Diego

University of California at San Diego

Boston

MIT

School of the Museum of Fine Arts

Minneapolis

Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Tyler School of Art

Temple University (Film and Media Arts)

The University of the Arts

University of Pennsylvania

Drexel University (digital media)

Pittsburgh

Carnegie Mellon University

Seattle

University of Washington

Smaller and rural areas:

Ames, Iowa

University of Iowa

Richmond, Virginia

Virginia Commonwealth University

Vermont College, Vermont Studio Center

Alternative Schools – meet only during the summer or limited periods

Bard (very hot!)

http://www.bard.edu/academics/programs/

Vermont College

http://www.tui.edu/current/ma/mfav/

Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York City (no diploma)

Schools with traditionally strong gallery associations

Yale

UCLA

Columbia

RISD

Bard

Schools considered strong for teaching

Carnegie Mellon University

Chicago Art Institute

UCSD

Post-Baccalaureate Art Programs

The Art Institute of Chicago

Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)

http://www.mica.edu/PROGRAMS/postbac/

University of the Arts (in crafts)

Programs in Digital / Experimental Media and the Cultural Study of New Media

Film and Communication Studies Programs in Canada / Programmes de cinéma et communication au Canada

http://www.film.queensu.ca/FSAC/Schools.html

University of California at San Diego, Visual Arts

http://visarts.ucsd.edu/

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Electronic Arts

http://www.arts.rpi.edu/index02.php

San Francisco State University, Conceptual Information Arts (CIA) Program

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/%7Einfoarts/

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art & Technology Studies

http://www.artic.edu/saic/programs/depts/graduate/ats.html

UC Irvine – ACE, Arts, Computation, Engineering

http://www.arts.uci.edu/article.php?nav_id=29&nav=29

http://www.ace.uci.edu/

Georgia Tech

School of Literature, Communication, and Culture

http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/index.html

Graphics, Visualization, and Usability (GVU) Center

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/gvutop.html

Carnegie Mellon University

Human-Computer Interaction Institute

http://www.hcii.cmu.edu/

Art Department

http://artserver.cfa.cmu.edu:8080/

Mass Institute of Technology (MIT)

the Media Lab

http://www.media.mit.edu/

Art Department

University at Buffalo

Media Studies Department

http://mediastudy.buffalo.edu/

University of Iowa

Department of Cinema & Comparative Literature

http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Ecomplit/