How I did it: i made art for years because i loved it, then my high school teachers helped me organize my work into a portfolio. i worked all through high school to pay for it, and applied to five art schools. i got into all of them, and picked the one i found the most inspiring. then i worked hard and learned to over analyze my art and treat it like a chore instead of a love. eventually i learned to enjoy art again, but am still struggling with the student loans and am forced to spend most of my time in crappy jobs to pay them. i think a better option for me would have been to use the money i saved to move to a town with a good arts community, and gotten a job in the arts straight out of high school. it is more important for an artist to have community and time to paint then it is to have a degree or a formal education.
Lessons & tips: if you love art and want to make it a career, i recommend going to learning a trade like electrician, welding, dental technician, something dependable that will pay the bills without draining your soul, so that you can AFFORD to make art. because if you can't pay the bills, you surely can't buy paint.
Chelsea is excited about 43 things.
You don’t think that you can make a living doing art? I do. I just think it takes a lot of hard work. I’m going to graduate from art school in May of 2009 and I agree that it made doing art a chore, but I also think it’s a possibility when it comes to making a living. Granted, I haven’t tried yet, but I’m not going to give up just because the road is going to be rough.
bakuyaku is at home with her mum ^_^
I had the opposite experience. I went to a traditional, private 4 year school and they had a crappy art program. I am going to transfer to art school in January, and I think it will be infinitely better. It is expensive yes, but I am sorry you feel this way about your experience, but there may be other factors involved, like the type of art you make, where you live, what kind of work you expect initially, and finally, your original idea of what being a working artist is.
Good luck in whatever you choose to do next, and I hope things start to look better for you in the future.
I think the problem maybe which art schools you choosed. The problem is that all art schools are extremelly expensive because they are private and sometimes for-profit or because the quantity of students is so small that they have to charge a lot in order just to maintain their instalations.
The best tip I can give to any future art student is to go to a public university or go to one with a faculty which is famous in their field. And also, the bachellor in Art Studio is worth nothing without a Masters, and if you are a painter (the most popular and competitive of all medias in art) try to have a second degree in other kind of stuff.
The other option, if someone is REALLY talented is to go to Cooper Union, it is great and free. The catch? They only accept 3% of the applicants.
