First, thanks for posting this article to rec.arts.fine. I immediately clicked the link to your site and started checking it out, saving a bookmark for later examination. I like your comments so much I installed your feed into my email reader. You manage a gracious and urbane style while making sharp points. Refreshing.

Second, I noticed you had a link to my site after I commented on the newsgroup. Thanks. I would like to return the favor and will do so as soon as I get to updating my site. That should occur in a week or so. As a working artist, I tend to do things in batches, but lately my projects have precluded too much time spent on the internet or my website.

Third, rec.arts.fine tends to be an adversarial environment. I generally prefer a more civilized dialog, so the flippancy of my remarks there should not be construed as my regular, everyday tone. I consider art to be the best sort of human endeavor. Artists should therefore be helped and supported. I try to do so, but there are some who hurt in the name of help. Contemporary art education is a field that needs some grim reaping. The field needs to be cleared for a better crop. I often feel a sense of outrage at the false information that is passed off as wisdom.

Fourth, I have at last a few minutes to write. It so happens I have another computer happily buzzing and whirring as it churns through a series of install disks for a new operating system, and sitting here watching a series progress meters is not my idea of fun, so I thought I’d do this little follow up.

Before I begin, I should tell you that I only just saw the repost of my comments on rec.arts.fine, and I’d like to give a little context. It is not that I don’t have sympathy for artists who don’t sell. I know full well that art is as much about self discovery as it is about anything. It’s just that in the gallery scene, I meet a hell of a lot of people who blame their audience for their lack of sales.

It is the responsibility of the artist to communicate in a way that causes the intended emotional effects on their prospective audience.

It is never, never acceptable to blame the “plebeian tastes” of “_hoi poloi_” for a failure to communicate. If an artist wants to devote himself or herself to experimentation, fine, but you do not hear such people complaining about not selling, do you? So I addressed my harsh comment to those who blame their audience for what is, in fact, their own lack, and for them, I am decidedly unsympathetic.

But I have another vector to this topic I wanted to share. One thing I notice in the talk about this subject is that the best argument people can make in favor of an art education is that it is an education, and education is good.

Education IS good. I’d like to live in a world where everyone had the equivalent of a college education. I think everyone should have something like what is considered a good liberal arts education as a base for their specialization.

It appears to me that there is, in addition to a failure in art education, a general failure in education. That is a strong statement, I know, but I come from a family that has a lot of long lived people. From these people, first hand, I learned that the average eighth grader in 1920 was probably better educated than the average high schooler today, and the average high schooler was better educated than the average completer of lower division college today. I think about how my grandfather taught me how to do complex calculations in one’s head, something they taught him grammar school. (It is not difficult. You basically work problems from the left side of the number. It’s a teachable skill.) All of the older generations knew at least a little Greek and more Latin. Far from being an archaic and useless thing, it gave them a grounding in not only grammar, but the ideals of democracy and enterprise. These are just a few examples I cite right off the top of my head as a backup for the observation that education is deteriorating. I am not alone in this. Anyone who follows education news is no stranger to this topic.

Now, I just touch on that, but I bring it up to suggest that the inability of art education to create people who can survive as artists might be a reflection or a symptom of a greater ill.

While I’m something of a bohemian these days, I used to work as a college administrator. I was on the inside. I heard and saw first hand the profit oriented cynicism that is the status quo. It’s a terrible thing. And the real shame is that the teachers who are a part of the system are by and large good, loving people. When I talk with them about educational reform, I always get a virtual cheer when I suggest that the way to save money in schools and provide a better education both would be to immediately fire all the administrators. Have the teachers run the schools. Set up a democracy. Involve both students and parents with voting rights. Things would change. There is hope.

Last, as to how to reform art education _per se_, what I have seen really works is the old fashioned apprentice system. I had the good fortune to grow up with a mother who was herself an extraordinary artist, so had training and connections in the art world from an early age. I was lucky. I was a hot seller right out of high school. I even got an art school scholarship, but I threw it away when I saw how bad the teacher’s work was. (I made more money than them too.) Later, when I hit one of my artistic walls, I had the good fortune to stumble into another studio of another great artist who could show me how Rembrandt, Sargent, Rubens and Caravaggio really worked. I came to learn, but in exchange, I taught his younger students. He learned to paint in Italy from one who was trained in France while Bouguereau still alive. In college I learned how to get laid and do scientific math, but only through personal contacts with great artists was I able to further my artistic ambitions. The apprentice system worked for thousands of years. It wasn’t broken. It did not need fixing.

All right then, my Solaris 10 is installed time to get back to the geek stuff.

Cheers,

Rex Crockett
***
http://www.rexotica.com

The books always lead me to questions that no one seems to know the answer to. That is what I find so exciting about being an artist. A lot of vision scientists are writing about art these days. I’m glad to be doing art, not just writing about it.

Cennini’s book is great. Other excellent art books are Nicolaides’ The Natural Way to Draw and Albers’ The Interaction of Color.

I think the best way to learn is to be open to all sources. Through your art practice, you come up with questions, some of which will lead you to books or instruction. Through reading and looking you discover more things to explore in your work. Probably not so different from science, wouldn’t you say?

And yet, I’ve learned a great deal from his book. Reading a good technique book is not like reading a normal book. It is more like living with that book, reading it over and over and over, experimenting and working yourself in the process. I’d love to watch Jan van Eyck paint, but he’s dead. Cennino Cennini’s book gets better every time I read it. So learning from a book is not ideal, but it can be valuable.

I didn’t go to art school, but I have taken a lot of classes at a
variety of places, and I’ve almost always learned a lot from them. On
the other hand, it is way more expensive than checking a book out of the
library, and unless you’re looking for instruction in the mechanics of
very specific techniques, the best way to learn will always be
experience and experimentation.

I think you are taking the issue in a good direction with the concept of “total immersion” in a creative environment. Regardless of one’s experience in art school, or lack thereof, a continuing stimulating environment is essential — we seem to agree on this. I have been pleasantly surprised at how much inspiration I have found in the art “blogosphere.” However, I do not go so far as Jordan Grumet in saying it is a community. For me, an essential aspect of commitment is missing in an online “community,” as compared to an in real geographically/economically centered community. The Painting a Day movement seems to be an exception to this — there is an important element of commitment here. I think there is something we can learn from this movement, without having to join it.

David,

Thanks for your comment. I appreciate your viewpoint. I think you point out a key danger for artists today: people who are good at art tend to be good at other things as well, and it can be difficult to keep the focus on painting and drawing when there are other creative opportunities that are more lucrative. I think you make an excellent point that the artist today must discover a “survival strategy,” in order to stay in the business. That’s why I say that a successful artist is someone who is able to keep doing art with commitment and enthusiasm, even if they cannot live from that alone.