From: Christina Z. Anderson (zphoto@montana.net)
Date: 10/19/01-08:37:19 AM Z
Jack,
I love this letter, and your perspective on MFA'ing through the years.
One question (since I will probably be applying to grad school this or next
year): do you give the incoming students the truth, that they weren't one
of the top five wanted? I myself would not want a program accepting me if
they thought I was "less than" (so keep that in mind when you see my slides
come through the admissions process! :)). I'm figuring when I apply to
places that if they deny me admission it's because there's no way I'd be a
good fit, not that my work sucks. For instance, I'll probably apply to Yale,
too, but I would be shocked if they would accept me because my work is so
different than what I saw on their walls when visiting last spring.
However, I wouldn't alter my submitted work to fit their conceptual mode
because it'd seem false.
Hey, Shannon, maybe you and I will be appllying to the same place at
the same time and meet each other!
Chris
> 'there is something happening Mr. Jones . . and, you don't know what it
is."
> Bob Dylan
>
> To add another vegetable to the stew pot . . or is this discussion on
stone
> soup?
> I've taught since '69 here @ the Art Institute and in the grad program
since
> the early 70's.
> THEN
> The student was fairly new to the idea of obtaining an MFA in photography.
> We were similar in age and I was the 'gang' leader. We all worked and
> shared the produced images. Each of us were excited by the creativity
> amongst ourselves and the potential for new directions.
>
> Slowly, as I grew older, and the hippy thing and the Viet Nam war subsided
> and Reagan/Bush plopped into power, the realization of teaching became
more
> critical and the average student to the MFA program knew less about being
an
> artist but knew more regarding photography.
> We started seeing well made portfolios of almost non-content imagery.
Though
> I overblow my statement, much work was objective/possessive rather than
> poetically portrayed.
> Our probram expanded to include more art history and even the PM aspects
of
> theory. Some teachers came in and tore everyone and everything apart with
> Post Modernism. Now that much of it is understood better and accepted (it
> was very difficult churning the obtuse language to create a more
vernacular
> comprehension), we have what we consider to be a far more rigorous
academic
> course for the student to follow.
>
> Also, in fairness to the institutions you may refer to and the
> teachers....yes, some are turkeys and some places are dull, yet the
> enlivenment of a program is, in my mind, due to the creative energies and
> interests of the students.
>
> NOW
> Keep in mind that students are 'invited' to participate. For instance, we
> may have over 90 portfolios to look through. Out of those, our faculty
> (which is four: Linda Connor, myself, Reagan Louie and Henry Wessel) is
> aided in our choices by: additional faculty who are adjunct or invited,
the
> complete graduate class who are given two votes. We may pick about 4 to 6
> candidates (5%) but the program needs to take ten to maintain the size and
> quality of the program. From past experience it is realized that twenty
need
> to be invited for an average of 50% attend. NONE of the original 5 chosen
> may come and we could end up with the program holding 12 people we did not
> relish to as great a degree as those we found held more votes.
>
> Then, the task becomes more focused on teaching. More often than not those
> invited rise to the occasion and do well. Another classic example of the
> average student is the person who comes in with a portfolio and thereby
sets
> out to 'experiment' and create something completely different. It is the
> rare person who is creatively capable of such an endeavor and they return
> (in almost 75% or more of all cases) to their original work and expand it
a
> bit.
>
> It is my feeling the student ought to come into a program with a strong
body
> of work and expand upon that. By doing so they will slowly put together a
> body that holds variety such as that of a well led life. They will also
> refine the raison d'etre for the work as a whole and be able more to
define
> what it is they are actually doing. Curators et al, in general, like to
see
> a "body' of work so they can mull it over and choose images THEY feel to
be
> important. I'd rather have the contemporary photographer do it. However,
> there are such examples as Walker Evans not knowing diddly about his work
in
> "American Photographs' which is fully edited by Lincoln Kerstein.
>
> I am sure some of what I have said may be taken cum grano salis but it is
a
> scenario not uncommon. The student entering a program, whether at our
> institution of @ UNM, Chicago, Pratt, VSA, Seattle, Arizona, wherever
should
> be prepared to work their butt off making photographs, That is the key . .
> to make the photographs and let them be.
>
> Jack Fulton
> > On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, shannon stoney wrote:
> >> teach them. People in my classes still want to know things like how
> >> to use the zone system, how to use a view camera, how to process 4x5
> >> film. They have been asking about this stuff for a long time, and
> >> since our teacher has been stalling on teaching that stuff, they ask
> >> me to show them how to do these things.
> >
> > I loved grad school, but I used to say it was like a Victorian lecture
on
> > marriage, a lot of talk about the beauties of conjugal love, but if you
> > asked about HOW IT WAS DONE (film, development, etc.) you were quickly
> > shushed.
> >
> >> In one of the best drawing classes I ever took, the most helpful
> >> things I learned were some "technique" things. The teacher could
> >> teach these things because he was a working artist. He didn't go on
> >> and on about theory; he taught us how he worked. That was very
> >> helpful.
> >
> > Right -- no "theory of drawing."
> >
> >> Not to say that theory is never helpful; it just seems as if lately
> >> it has become a substitute for anything else substantive, because in
> >> a way it's easier to talk about books and words than it is to get
> >> down to making something.
> >
> > Not to mention that theory remains state-of-the-art about as long as
> > software.. If you go back & read "theory" of, for instance, the '70s,
> > it's like another planet... which many tenured profs are from.
> >
> >> position on why you did something or why it's better to take pictures
> >> of flowers or not take pictures of flowers for example. My problem
> >> with the teachers at my school is that they don't support their
> >> theories with any good reasons. They just beat people up with them.
> >> They have been doing this, unchallenged, for so long that they have
> >> forgotten, if they ever knew, why they believe the things they
> >> believe. I think they accepted them as dogma at some point in their
> >> careers and have never really examined the validity of these ideas,
> >> or their practicality, or their effect on students, especially young,
> >> hesitant students. I am an old, stubborn student, so I mostly blow
> >> it off. But I end up defending younger, less confident people a lot.
> >
> > Very well said !... Of course one hopes to produce art that transcends
> > theory... which, alas, may not be clear until we also are, so-to-speak,
> > transcended.
> >
> > Judy
> >
>
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