MadMania

A while back a guy  emailed me because he was considering going to art school, and wanted my advice.  Here would be my list of things I wish I had known when I went, that would have made my life a lot easier:

1. The instructors don’t care who you are. Talent is cheap and common, and they don’t care how awesome everyone else thinks you are. The instructors are there to hone your talents and teach you skills to harness them, not to lavish praise upon you. Lots of talented people join the art program, but fewer graduate because their egos can’t hack it.
2. The instructors don’t care about your “vision” or “style.” And with good reason. If you haven’t had any training outside public school, you likely aren’t that amazing. The instructors are there to teach you skills, not massage your ego.
3. Do your assignments to the letter, no matter how boring. You will receive a lot of boring assignments that you will think are beneath you. Some of them are, and you will be amazed how many people in the art program can’t even do those well. But more appalling is the people who have talent who blow those assignments off because they are boring, or try to somehow be so amazingly clever at executing such a menial assignment, or attempt something so grand they don’t complete it. Just do the work. The funny thing–the people that know they aren’t that talented tend to work harder and actually succeed, while the “talented” students tend to procrastinate and fail. Tortoise vs. hare.
4. Meet every deadline. I swear I can’t stress this enough. You start blowing deadlines now, you will blow them later as a commercial artist. Once you get a rep for being unreliable, nobody wants you, no matter how good you are.
5. Lock your ego in a box and throw it in the ocean. This one thing will keep you from succeeding more than anything else. It keeps you from listening, it keeps you from learning. And every time someone praises you it confirms to yourself how magnificent you are, and keeps you from either listening to the instructors or completing assignments the way they are specified.
6. Draw from life all the time. Draw cars, animals, chairs, computers, pencils, Coke cans, table lamps, everything. You can pretty easily distinguish the work of someone who draws from life and someone who has no clue what something looks like.
7. Draw people from life all the time. Nothing is harder, and nothing is more useful. You can definitely tell someone who has no concept of anatomy by their drawings. You don’t have to have a nude model, but it does help. Just learn how to draw the skeleton, muscles, and fat, and then draw from life whenever you get the chance: people sitting in church, jogging in the park, walking their dog, driving a car, dancing, shooting hoops, swimming, etc.
8. Draw the things you have the hardest time with. Faces, hands, feet, whatever. If you tend to avoid the things you are bad at, you will always be bad at them, and you will always be weak. The sooner you start working on it the better.
9. Never be above learning anything from anyone. You would not believe what can come in handy later, and what you will wish you had learned, and how dearly you will pay for your ignorance. Sometimes, you will simply learn that someone who appears to be an idiot is an idiot. Sometimes you will find that someone who appears to be an idiot is actually quite skilled and gifted but is simply a terrible communicator.
10. You will have some bad instructors. Most of your instructors will be pretty amazing, though they will not make it easy on you. However, once in a while you will have some weirdo that slipped through. Just deal with it, complete their stupid assignments, and move to the next class. However, remember rule #9.
11. Art supplies are expensive. If you aren’t prepared to drop a lot of money on art supplies, you aren’t prepared to be an artist. That isn’t to say you must purchase supplies only from “art stores.” For instance, an Art Bin is just a glorified tackle box, except they charge $40 for it. Just go buy a tackle box. But a lot of stuff can’t be substituted: different kinds of paper, different pencils, erasers, paints, matting products, computers, etc.
12. If you have that romantic vision of the Starving Artist, get rid of it. In art school you probably will be a starving artist (see rule #11), but that is because knowledge is expensive. It is expensive because people who can do something well have spent a long time becoming so, and have no intention of just throwing it away. Most artists that are serious about their work make good money, and with good reason. I charge $50/hour, and I don’t dicker on price. If people don’t like the price you set, screw ’em. You back down now, you will back down forever until you are tired, poor, and burned out. I don’t mean to never negotiate, but I do mean if you could make better money in fast food, go work fast food. It will be easier, requires less skills, less material investment, and less heartache.
13. Network. Make contacts. You will never make a better advertisement than your personal relationship with other people. There are a lot of “talented” people we turned away at work because they were big jerkfaces, while we hired people off the loading dock because of their willingness to work hard and play well with others.
14. Don’t think because you are an artist you don’t have to know other skills. I don’t know how many art majors I knew in college who were indignant / whiny about the idea they actually had to type papers, and then, horror of horrors, spell properly. Learn to type, spell, communicate, write clearly, speak properly, and everything else you can.
15. Persevere. Like I said, art school is hard, and a lot of people don’t make it. Part of that reason is that the instructors do try to eliminate the weeds–they don’t want their names attached to some loser who won’t work hard, is egocentric, and won’t meet deadlines. But if you can be humble and persevere, they will be happy to teach you, and you will succeed.
16. Work hard. Or get out.

Calvin Coolidge said, “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

Last words: I hope these weren’t a discouragement, but they should make you pause enough to consider whether you should approach this task and come away a better artist, or whether your pride will not let you do it.

I’m not saying I never learned anything on my own or outside of college: I learned plenty, and the rules above apply just as much as the workplace.

But I dropped out of college like an idiot.

Don’t do that.

My three secrets: lose your ego, work hard, persevere. It’s funny: so many of the qualities we look for in people are just basic Christian attitudes (work hard, be nice, be humble, put others first), and not sheer limitless brilliance.