Four Years of Frustration: The Truth About Art School

I’m in color theory class at Savannah College of Art and Design with my big box of colored papers. There are about 300 3x5 papers in this box, each a different color.

This box cost my parents over $100 at the art supply store. It's completely ridiculous. It’s some kind of hoity-toity proprietary design school “must-have” to, I guess, understand color and the theory about it.

I resent the whole thing. I much prefer to mix paint and understand color theory based on pigment, not papers. I have my fancy high-end X-Acto knife set I was required to get, the very expensive mat board I had to buy, and my green gridded cutting mat. I also have the overpriced specific-brand glue stick with archival glue. This all feels so dumb and crafty.

I am obediently sitting at my desk, waiting for the professor to give instructions. I look around and notice that most of the art students are excited. I know I have a bad attitude and am having trouble shaking it.

The professor comes around and hands out a syllabus of all the color theory we will learn over the next four months. I look through the syllabus and read things like, “Create a color wheel of primary colors. Create a color wheel of primary and secondary colors. Create a color wheel of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.”

The syllabus is filled with exercises of cutting out these papers with my X-Acto knife and gluing them to the expensive mat board to learn which colors are complementary or analogous, what are tints or shades, how to create triadic color balance...I can't believe it.

Four months of cutting and gluing papers like I’m in kindergarten. What in the world is this all about? How could anyone stand for this? My parents are paying a fortune for me to learn how to be an artist. How can I learn how to be an artist with this ridiculous set of already-colored paper? I’m a painter.

And seriously, archival glue? X-Acto sets? Give me some scissors and rubber cement. How elitist can they be? Oh yes, I need this archival mat board at $15 a sheet to preserve my precious handmade color wheels. What kind of hell am I in?

The Slow Death of Creativity

Every week I suffered through this class, and going through it with a group of people who could not see the insanity of it all made me angrier and angrier.

Why weren't we at least making all of these dumb wheels and diagrams and blocks by just mixing paint? It would be so much faster and more educational. Why weren't we mixing colors to match values in black and white? Why weren't we learning about pigments and saturation and the properties of paint? If they wanted us to be so hands on, then let us learn how to make our own paints with a glass plate and glass mull.

I literally hated my box of colored papers. We were required to preserve every scrap we didn't use each week in case we needed that same color later. I had endless rectangles of cut mat board with stupid X-Acto cut paper on them. I could hardly believe this was a college course. This was by far the worst art class I had ever taken, but it wasn't the only lame class.

Drawing 101 was almost as bad. In four months, we only managed to learn about line, contour, shading, value, and cross-hatching, completing just one drawing of a still life of white objects on a white cloth—toilet paper rolls, styrofoam cups, eggs, white bowls, and white vases. It was a boring white still life, and drawing it for a week could be fine. But we were required to draw this still life on a giant 30x44 sheet of paper for more than a month. This class that should have lasted a week was strung out over four months.

I felt like I was learning at the slowest pace you can imagine. I would learn how to be an artist much faster if I just didn't go to school and painted on my own every day. It was heartbreaking to be trapped inside of a room of moody teenagers all day drawing toilet paper and eggs. I didn't mind starting at the basics, but this pace was infuriating.

I suspected that every proper degree had to be taught inside a magical four-year program. So these art classes had to be strung out and stretched. Drawing 1, 2, and 3; then Figure Drawing 1, 2, and 3; then Painting 1, 2, and 3; then Figure Painting 1, 2, and 3. We completed an average of 3-4 paintings and 3-4 drawings every four months.

What Art School Left Out

I didn't have even one class that covered developing my style, or that talked about symbolism or themes I could paint in. We painted still life and figures. Everything was academic. If they had to fill four years, then fill it. Teach me about the art world. How to exhibit my artwork. How to write a biography or an artist statement. Teach me about brush work and different techniques. How to use acrylic or collage or ink. Teach me how to work with pastels and watercolor. Teach me how to run a studio or make prints. Don't they want their graduates to be successful artists?

The four years droned on while every professor told us to make art for the sake of art and not to even think about making a living. The only way we could make a living is if we went to graduate school. They started grooming us for graduate school after two years. They kept telling us that this is when you really find your style as an artist. Until then, we were just learning all the things we needed for graduate school.

One of our friends, Jimmy, was planning on going to graduate school. I could have begged my dad to fund it, but something in me knew it was a scam. We toured the graduate studios and saw what they were creating—giant terrible abstracts where they would stand back 15 feet from their painting and throw buckets of paint at their canvas, or giant yarn installations, or heaps of metal scraps arranged into “sculptures.” I saw a huge pile of chicken bones that were spray painted baby blue.

I had enough. I didn't see anything that convinced me that any of the graduate students were going to make it in the marketplace. I didn't think anyone would pay even a single dollar for a baby blue chicken bone. The next time I heard the professors touting graduate school, I wanted to laugh.

Aside from the elitist art school garble we all endured, I did learn to draw a bit and I learned to paint a bit. Not great. But enough. After four years of art school, I should have learned a whole lot more. I should have walked out with confidence and belief in myself as an artist and a knowing that I could make it. I should have graduated with an artistic style and voice. I should have known how to build a brand, create a marketing strategy, promote my art, and serve humanity.

We should have been told that artists change the world and shift culture. We should have been told how powerful we are.

From Frustration to Revelation

The worst part of art school was that box of papers. The best part of art school, I didn't understand until 18 years later. I didn't realize the value of four years of art school until I owned my own art school. I opened my school in 2010 and taught little old ladies from Sun City how to loosen up until 2014.

But then one day in my kitchen, as I was ordering paper online, the heavens opened, and I received a mental download of a curriculum. It was a one-year program that would teach everything I missed out on in my art school. This curriculum had you paint 65 paintings and 30 drawings in just one year. You would find your art style, create a portfolio, build a branded website, learn all kinds of crazy amazing things about yourself, and graduate with confidence and a one-year plan for success.

I resented a four-year degree in nothing. I resented my color theory class and aimed to create the most revolutionary and compelling color theory the world has ever known. I revolted against chicken bones, bad abstracts, and heaps of scrap metal and yarn, instead upholding beauty and art that would sell.

I wanted my art school to be known for artists who would inspire the world with what they create and astound their nations with the fullness of love in their hearts. They would apprehend the divine and make it manifest on canvas. My school would raise up artists who knew their power—prophets and creators, lovers and warriors—who would carry light into the dark, speak beauty into chaos, and reveal heaven through their hands.

Has a disappointment ever pushed you toward your true purpose?

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