"My life would have been different if only... I'D GONE TO ART SCHOOL".

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Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 31, 2014 at 8:15pm

ix) OK sorry, it was probably an internal Google link unless it is geo-blocked for systems outside the USA. Unblocking subscription services are often low cost and mask your ISP so you can look like your computer is in the country you choose, you turn the cloak on and off. I used it for a month to watch some television online in Canada because CBC geo-blocks the USA. They will not share their television shows with us! If only the drug smugglers would pick up some DVD box sets on their journeys, the USA could also have forbidden television. It is an endless irony that tonnes of illegal drugs cross the border from Canada every day and I have not seen a single show of "Battle of the Blades". The show takes retired NHL professional ice hockey players and tries to teach them to figure skate by pairing them with a female expert. It is a competition like a television dance competition, except skating. My boyfriend wants to find the old shows, a famous Chicago hockey player was the host for a long time and he remembers many of the featured players from when he was younger. Anyway, it seems really amusing.

x) I'm used to all the infrastructure of Chicago. I can walk most places and do not need to drive, which is rare in the USA. Most places people live in the USA people drive cars many hours every day because that is the only way you can get places. Look at the enormous gasoline consumption in the USA because the nation is huge and there are no buses and trains throughout a majority of the country. I drive very little and my car is 14 years old and mostly I used it maybe once or twice a week. At least in the city I can go to art shows, take the train or bus with the disabled ride free pass, do the volunteer things I care about and there are a lot of cultural events. I went to the Thai Fest one year and they had a noodle contest. Sometimes there is free symphony or Shakespeare in the park and other things. I value my membership with the hackerspace and have connections to a lot of people. I love that there is every kind of person here, everyone from all over the world, and I know the food from every corner of the earth from the diversity here. (Oh, we have French Vietnamese baker two blocks from my apartment, he makes French breads and Banh Bao buns.) I took up learning ice hockey a year ago and have really enjoyed the sport and all the people I have met in various indoor ice rinks. It is very expensive to live in Chicago, it is dangerous, high taxes, deep political corruption, there is no natural beauty here and I wish I had a garden or at least a place to sit outdoors near my apartment. The dogs would like a garden. I take them to a park so they can lie in the sun. Rich people live much better because they usually own a home, can go to gourmet restaurants and the theater. I spend time with my other artist friends and people and we find ways to entertain ourselves. Also, the country and the suburbs, the culture is totally different. People in the suburbs just go shopping and are strangely less social. People in the suburbs just consume and stay in their houses all the time; they work to consume and consume so they must work. People in the country are wildly different depending on the region, most are farmers or ranchers and being farmers are often poor or in poverty. American farmers have to compete with farming corporations, my grandparents had a farm, and it can be a very hard life. You find far more intolerance and ignorance with cruelty to gay/LGBTQ, ethnicities, people of color, immigrants - here is more fear and hatred in rural areas. People like that make me very upset. The city with all its flaws is actually more tolerant. The country or small town would be more tolerable since the internet would still connect you to the world, but that would be the main connection to the world. 

xi) Do you want a giant squid? I made several. I will be mailing them soon. 

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 31, 2014 at 3:11pm

Continued:

vi) I have had 2 exhibitions of 'ethnic art' this year-- one on African masks, the other on Aboriginal Art. I am neither an African nor an Aborigine, but have no hesitation in making art in those, or any other, style, that inspires me; (see www.val-herman-art.eu  then 'Exhibitions 2014'). Stiuck that in yer pipe, Yale!

vii) The Royal Academy of Art (I think) has an interesting take on this -- Blind Collecting, you could call it. The Academy asks its members, and students, to each contribute a postcard with a work of their art on it to its annual exhibition. The postcards are hung up, but you can't see who has contributed what. The cards are sold for anominal price, £10/$14. You buy a postcard 'blind', and might get one by a famous artist like Damien Hirst (in which case your card might be worth £10,000+) or by John or Jane Doe (in which case your card has cost you b£10, and is worth whatever value you put on it); I've started trading art for art, and picked up a couple of interesting pieces that way. All the walls in our house are full of stuff, and there is very little scope to hang more on them

viii) In these parts, Picasso is seen as the Ultimate Artist, and Matisse an Also Ran. Sad  but true. Picasso, Matisse, Dufy, Dali, and lots of others were all active painters in this region in C20. In C21, there is ME! (He says modestly)

ix) the link didn't work. I'll try Amazon again.

x) It's insane, yes. Vodka is no solution. Some optimism is. If walking away helps you cope, then you must walk away. Would life be easier for you if you had a rural existence, far away from the pressures of a big city?

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 31, 2014 at 3:06pm

Bonjour again, Shellie!

Here we go again:

i) if you're following the Russia/Ukraine invasion/occupation, you'll see that the European countries have no appetite for war, NATO membership notwithstanding. They are not keen to get involved in the fight against ISIS either. Fortunately medicare-systems are generally good in Europe, and provide for (at least) basic health care. Your family (& friends?) seem to have been involved in all the recent conflicts.

ii) I agree. Of course it would make more sense for the Government to ask professions (like medicine) what they want/need in terms of training, rather than churn out lots of inappropriately qualified graduates in the hope that they will be needed.

iii -iv) thanks for the link, but I never use YourBoob --ever. I have a thing about so-called social media. (see seperate photos)

My ex sent a photo of a 17th century Dutch flower-painting to a studio in China, and got back a fantastic full-size oil reproduction of it. It was well worth the small sum of mloney she paid for it.

v) how can any institution justify fees of $260k for an MFA? Go to the nickel and dime store, buy some paints and a block of paper, and get to work. Or some chalk and become a pavement artist. I can  undersatnd such fees for the medical profession, but not for the legal one, and certainly not for art (is that a profession? I think not -- it's more of a calling)

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 31, 2014 at 2:24pm

Bonjour Shellie!

This comes from my earlier series, "We  hold these truths to be self-evident"....

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 31, 2014 at 7:27am

Hello Val,

i) Invade more nations! (Just joking.) Since 1992, my connections to war: former brother-in-law- Gulf War, wounded; Danny-Iraq, wounded; Theresa-Afghanistan; Scott-Iraq; Missy-Iraq. Honestly I can show you whole regions of the USA, the only jobs with more than minimum wage are the Army and Halliburton. If you want health care, dental care, a future, in the poorest places, there is only the military. 

ii) That is where Academic World and Real World go separate ways. 

iii)-iv) Yes, China. In the USA sometimes factory paintings are from Mexico. Technique painters in Mexico get pennies for the hours they paint. Chicago born artist Lizabeth Eva Rossof came up with a way to work with a Chinese factory as an atelier. She paid the Xiamen factory artists to paint their own portraits however they wanted. 

If you are not geo-blocked, the whole movie is on You Tube (1:23): My Kid Can Paint That. Some of YouTube is geo-blocked and some is not. If you have an ISP clone service use a USA code that makes your computer look like it is here. 

v) USA education is much more expensive. If you want to be a doctor or an attorney it is not unusual to expect $130,00 to $300,000 or more in student loan debt. The MFA program at Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta, Georgia, USA is $260,000 tuition only. SCAD claims ties to the White House and President Obama. The school claims it will get you connections with powerful people. 

vi) Yale is so far in the past, they are frightening. I think it is racist if you only allow people of colour to make art about race. If a non-white artist was a skilled Abstract painter or portrait artist, that would not fit Yale's politics. I dislike monolithic power structures like that in art, but that is normal. Monolithic power structures are the norm in art. Yale will have a long way to go to catch up to the 20th Century let alone the 21st Century.

vii) In the USA, that is called Shotgun Collecting. Like a shotgun that sprays a wide swath of pellets when fired, the collector buys the whole room. The strategy is to buy bulk and hope one canvas is a winning raffle ticket. Good luck with that! Shotgun Collectors come the MFA graduation art shows for the bigger schools and buy as much as they can. I wish I knew your friend, I would offer $20 for a nice one I like for its own merit and he gets 50% profit. I have what little art I have because I wanted it and I love it. I bought a tiny painting for $15 and it will be worth $8 when I die. :D Some things I have because I traded my art to other artists. 

viii) Rosseau, no. He was basically a self-taught folk artist and a mailman. He would have been denigrated as a hobbyist and a wannabe. Matisse would be successful in today's world as long as there had not been a Matisse before him. As one of his professors said, Matisse was born to simplify painting. Look at how much Matisse innovated and invented, how much Picasso copied. Picasso had his own innovations but Matisse was truly leading art into new explorations, creating new modes of expression for the Modern era.

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 31, 2014 at 7:27am

ix) It looks like Google books has the introduction to an older edition of "The Gift" online as a PDF file, try this link: click here. /it may not work, it auto-populated since I am signed into my Google account. The book goes deep into sociology and I like when people investigate things and try to figure them out. 

x) It helps if I can just walk away from something if I need to stop. Stress and coping are challenges for me and Americans are not often internally compassionate to vulnerable people. The idea exists in concept but less in practise. We'll send money to Malaysia is they have a tsunami but my fellow Americans think me, you, everyone all should be able to conquer any problem every time and no less. The relentless promotion of positive thinking and the beliefs of all people overcoming all hardship all the time is part of the insanity of living here. I have some Russian immigrant friends who find it all very entertaining. If something in life is fucked and people are doomed to be miserable by it, they acknowledge this essential truth with a morose moment and some vodka, then get on with life. Americans think everything should be approached with the enthusiasm of a puppy and/or the religious fervor of saints. It's insane.  

 

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 31, 2014 at 5:27am

Thanks again, Shellie.

And, in reply:

i) the military isn't really an option in the European countries I'm familiar with. I've never met a young person who wanted to join the military (although some have had to do a period of conscription).

ii) in the UK, the last (Labour) Government decided that at least 50% of High School students should go to University. This resulted in the upgrading of many colleges to university status, and many essentially vocational courses became degree courses. The result? Well, more students, more degrees, more courses, more universities, etc, but it's arguable if the population has become any more skilled. There are also some unintended by-effects of this policy. For example, student nurses now have to go to University, and spend much more time in the classroom than they do actually looking after patients. When they are on day-release from their course and work in a hospital they are not allowed to touch patients as they are not yet qualified. Thus they are essentially spectators (much to the frustration of the Drs they are working -- or supposed to be working --alongside).

iii)-iv) I don't know the film, but will check it out. There was an exhibition in my village of touristy paintings this summer. They were well executed, if you like that kind of thing (which I don't); 80% of them were sold at the opening of the exhibition. General rule -- if you buy touristy art at a major European tourist site it will almost inevitably have been made in a factory or mass-produced, and most likely in, as you say, China.

v) sad stories, but economic necessities for survival, I suppose. I'm all for learning for the sake of learning, and believe that any (well most) university degrees are better than no university degrees, but I do wonder what on earth the graduates are going to do with their degrees after spending 3+ years and tens of thousands of dollars on them.

vi) My first reaction was 'even Yale'. But then, on reflection, I wondered whether Yale was setting the trend that other art schools would eventually (have to) follow.

vii) I have a Dutch friend here in France who buys up unwanted art from Dutch municipalities. His theory is that some of it might be valuable one day, and some of the artists may become important. He buys canvasses that were once priced at $1000 or more for about $10. His collection has a fictional value of $250,000+, but it's actual value is much less.

viii) Rousseau (and Matisse) were operating ina  different age. The question is would they have 'made it' in today's world? Probably? Possibly? Who knows?

ix) I will check out 'The Gift' and see if Mr Amazon has it in stock. It sounds interesting. Thanks for the reference

x) you have not had an easy life at all. But I sense that you are a brave survivor, and come what may, you will be brave and you will survive. You write and argue well. You seem to be finding jobs and things to do that you can handle -- and enjoy. If you manage to avoid organisations/corporations and th ineveitable pressures that come with those, and find more satisfactory tasks, then I suspect that you will not only cope, but also find inner contentment. I wish you well -- very well.

Val

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 31, 2014 at 3:48am

Hi Val,

i) Same story in the USA, in that university is no longer a road to a middle class life. I tell younger people to think about trade schools or practical skills educations. Many go to the military, especially the poor, although that is not always available if there are no jobs in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, etc. 

ii) Same in the USA, though sadly the minority that finish a degree at least have attained a goal and have the benefit of knowledge. Humanities (art, history, philosophy, languages, etc.) and the pure sciences (chemistry, mathematics) few to no jobs, very low paying. I fear sometimes the whole nation is going to become even stupider than it is now. Ignorance is free.

iii - iv) Yes, I read "Stuffed Shark" and also Polski's "I Bought Andy Warhol". Also see the documentary movie "My Kid Can Paint That." These all show the highest level of the gallery market in the culture industry, the fads and mythos.

Oh, every traveler wants a touristy painting. I have seen the palette knife trash - piles of Eiffel towers brought here from Paris- and wonder if they are Chinese factory paintings. I used to work as a picture framer but in the USA that is low pay to minimum wage unless you own your own shop. The Paris tourist trade paintings are definitely technique canvases being made en masse. Chicago is a mess, it is illegal to sell art on the streets here. I spent a whole summer studying the problem of why artists cannot s...

 

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 31, 2014 at 3:48am

v) Yes, flip burgers, bake pizzas, work in a grocery store, anything. One art school person I know is sadly in the sex trade. One left the grocery store to pour drinks in a bar and is studying tattoo art - people will pay to decorate themselves. One artist I know manages an online obituary website for a company so she can work from home and have time to make art.

vi) What is more interesting is if you survey recent graduates of Yale, the highest painting programme in the USA. The all white art department has a strange fetish for people of colour, only if they make art about race and ethnicity. Byron Kim an Asian artist did "Synecdoche": paintings about skin colour, Mickalene Thomas paints African-American women. Yale has a history of bullying even Jewish students: Frank Gehry and Mark Rothko both dropped out of Yale and changed their names to something WASP white (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).

vii) Wow, that is interesting! A Las Vegas art professor, I forget his name, he wrote "the walls are full." It was true with the Dutch!

viii) Henry Rosseau was a "hobbyist" and his work hangs in museums! Ignore the snobbery. What, not the right pedigree and people will call you names, a Bo-bo (it should be Faux Bo!) for false Bohemian. Even if you have a pedigree and genius, the nobles will still call you a peasant, so ignore everyone.

ix) Henri Matisse's father was horrified when he wanted to go to art school and told him not to, that he would starve! Thankfully Matisse managed even through the worst of WWI & WWII! Thankfully dear Matisse was brave and resolved. I am reading the book "The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World" by Lewis Hyde. The author write about how some tribal peoples have a gift economy outside of barter or money that better fits things they consider culturally valuable (beautiful, honorable, spiritual things) and how modernisation bring people to capitalist ends, where art does not have a function like it does in a tribal lifestyle and thus art fails to translate into just money. The exchange for money is much lower than the total value of the art beyond the physical (mental, emotional, cultural, historical.) This git concept applies to visual arts, poetry, dance, music, acting, etc. in that these cultural endeavours are more akin to a gift since they are rarely compensated with a living wage. He writes about why art fails as a commodity. The book is more complex than that but this is some of the content.  

x) I'm on the pitiful amount that is USA dole for mental illness and brain damage. Mostly I suffer from PTSD and clinical depression, some other problems, and minor to moderate brain damage. My mother used street drugs when she was pregnant and I have been through many extreme traumas related to crime and poverty. The USA economy started collapsing in 2006 and I was losing my job in finance, my father had just been convicted of attempted murder with a bomb, so I filed for government disability payments. I'm a high verbal processor but exhaust quickly. I have a terrible memory, get confused easily sometimes, and start to panic and devolve on any organisation if I have too much stress to cope. I work small jobs when I can get them since I have medical bills and debts I cannot pay. I volunteer teach art at a hackerspace / makerspace and try to help with social issues where I can. I donate art to charities and fund raising events for causes. I did well in art school and I write well but am not so good at many general employment skills. So I try to be as active and well as I can manage. The USA system for government medical care is also very horrible. I would be on the streets homeless probably but my boyfriend is fond of me, flaws and all. 

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 30, 2014 at 8:03pm

Thanks Shellie!

Some observations:

i) many degrees (in Europe) are essentially worthless in the sense that they do not provide entry into a profession or trade. There is now a belated realisation that an 18-year old would be better off doing an internship or an apprenticeship -- especially in something 'useful' like plumbing or electricity  -- and not spend 3+ years getting a 'useless' degree in, say,  Media Studies ororts Psychology, for which there are no jobs. And there is a big debt to repay at the end of the degree course.

ii) I've taught on a number of MBA programmes, and always ask students what they are going to do with their degree, and whether or not it will make a significant difference to their 'career path' (if they have one). It's worryingt that many of them don't know what they will do with their degree, except hope that 'something' will come along. This is even the case if they are paying $40,000 for a year's study.(In fairness, I should say that I entered into Masters and PhD programmes without knowing what i was going to do with the degrees. Fortunately, i found something 'useful' to do with them)

iii) I exhibit a lot. People don't buy my art, or anyone else's around here. It used to be the case that people would buy art and put it on their walls. Now they just look at their iPhones and iPads and all the rest of that nonsense; There is a major imbalance between the supply of art (in the South of France) and demand for it -- if it's not 'touristy art' (sunflowers, lavender fields, the canal, etc), art just doesn't sell, especially the type of contemporary and conceptual art that me and my mates are involved in.

iv) two very good books by Dan Thompson are, "The $12 million stuffed shark: the curioisbeconomics of contemporary art", and "The supermodel and the brillo box". In one of them he makes the point that a guard at museum/gallery will earn more, and have a guaranteed salary, than most artists. Thompson makes it abundantly clear that an artist needs a) a degree in art, b) to be 'adopted' by a gallery or sponsor, and c) a large dose of luck.

v) so what do art graduates like you do when they discover that they can't support themselves as an artist? Flip burgers?

vi) in the art market, the rich grow richer and the poor, well, just stay poor. I agree with all your comments about the art industry being the exclusive preserve of the offspring of the rich and white.

vii) in the Netherlands, there used to be a government funded programme under which artists were encouraged to paint, sculpt, etc,. They were paid for it, and their works would be given to the local/regional government for display in town halls, museums etc. This was stopped after 10-15 years, as more works were being produced than could be accomodated.

viii) what you say is sad in the sense that you have the (minimum) academic qualification, but it's not good enough, and never will be, for you to survive as an artist. (I have different qualifications, phutz around with art, have a pension, so don't need to cut the artistic mustard. In that sense, art is a hobby for me).

ix) in the light of what you say, it probably wouldn't have made any difference if I'd gone to art school (the starting point of this), or not. In fact, if I had gone to art school, I would probably have been worse off than I am now.

x) out of interest, and I will understand if you choose not to answer this as it's really none of my business: what do you do for a living?

Thanks again. Val

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