From: Darryl Baird (dbaird@umflint.edu)
Date: 08/22/02-08:41:17 AM Z
Although I've been on the road for some time I have read most of the posts with
interest and thought I'd ride it out... with my all new (and untested)
facilities about to be put into a long semester's usage, I have way too much to
do to be sitting and scratching out a response, BUT
I can't sit and simply read this thread anymore without comment.
Shannon, leave your school immediately; hopefully it is not too late. The
critiques and attitudes you've described are legend in the field, but certainly
not uniform nor the the norm from my experience. I know it happens because I
hear from students attending one of the several top twenty schools in my area
of similar inqusition-like styles. Find the "teachers" and ignore the list of
faculty's achievements unless one of them is great teaching. My proudest award
of all my achievements is a Distinguished Professor Award -- a student based
annual award That's what keeps me in this job.
No critiques needs to destroy anything, only illuminate what is there, both
good and bad. Suggestions for improvement, whether alternative possibilities
for presentation, content, and technique all instruct without personal loss.
Yes, I have had students cry in critiques, but they could not stand to have
their work used as an examples of how to better compose a photo, so some
obviously have very thin skins, but most do not. I also find students own sense
of pride and a need to appear competent (visually cool?) is a great motivating
factor for their development as artists. A small amount of praise placed upon a
good (student) example helps to direct others to consider "where" in their own
work they may also achieve public recognition.
A.D. Coleman admits his job as a critic is to destroy, but only that which
doesn't advance the medium or pretends to achieve the status of sacred. That is
very different that what is, could, probably should be going on in school.
IMHO, we should be teaching survival of the artist, not the image.
-Darryl
P.S. MFA degrees are professional artist degrees and have a long lasting effect
on one's ability to formulate ideas, clarify fuzzy thinking, and understand a
wide variety or art voices. It is worth the time and maybe the money, but a job
teaching is not to be considered lightly as merely a means to an end. Too many
MFA degrees are awarded without providing a basis for teaching the medium. I'm
lucky to have a very supportive university where teaching is supported and
nurtured by a series of seminars, workshops, teaching circles, and financial
grants.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shannon Stoney wrote:
> Jonathan said something yesterday about how a lot of the art teachers who
> are the most abusive and destructive are also the ones who do the least work
> themselves. I think there is something to that. Julia Cameron goes into
> that at some length in her book The ARtist's Way. This book is a bit New
> Age-y, but it does have some important insights about why people attack art
> so bitterly sometimes. It helps you to have a little compassion for them.
> It helps you "feel their pain." For a few minutes anyway.
>
> This syndrome is still puzzling, though. Why do people who have been abused
> in art school themselves want to inflict the same sort of abuse on other
> students? Why do they also believe in theories of art that don't make sense
> logically or intuitively? There is only one possible explanation:
> Stockholm Syndrome.
>
> Stockholm Syndrome was named after an incident where some bank tellers in
> Sweden were held hostage for six days by some armed gunmen. At the end of
> the six days, they didn't want to be rescued! Two of them ended up marrying
> their captors. Since then, the term "stockholm syndrome" has been used to
> describe situations where victims of abuse and oppression come to identify
> with their captors, admire them, and believe in their worldview. Patty
> Hearst was another example of the syndrome. In case you are too young to
> remember: Patty Hearst, an heiress, was kidnapped by a far left terrorist
> gang, and she eventually joined the gang and helped them rob a bank.
>
> How is this like art school, you ask? Well, according to one internet site
> on Stockholm Syndrome, there are four characteristics of it:
>
> --a perceived threat to survival and the belief that one's captor is willing
> to act on that threat
>
> --the captive's perception of small kindnesses from the captor within a
> context of terror
>
> --isolation from perspectives other than that of the captor
>
> --perceived inability to escape
>
> That sounds exactly like art school to me.
>
> --shannon
> -
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