So You’re Thinking of Going to Graduate School
November 24, 2007
…to get your MFA. Great! Do it. The time and expense are worth it. You’ll never get that level of instruction and uninterrupted study time outside of school. It’s a fabulous way to spend two to three years of your life.
Because nobody asked for it, here’s my list of MFA-application tips, skewed toward my experience studying painting and illustration.
Ask yourself why you’re going back to school. Is it because your parents think you should? Is it because your friends have graduate degrees and you don’t? I decided I needed graduate school after a certain disastrous series of paintings. I looked at my pile of failure and realized I needed to learn how to paint. Knowing that going in was a huge help. It reminded me to seek out the instruction I needed to become a better artist.
How are you choosing your school? Unless you’re interested in prestigious teaching positions or curatorships, a school’s reputation means bupkis. For the love of Pete, do not choose a school because Matthew Barney went there.
Browse the websites of the schools you’re considering. (Or visit them in person if possible.) Does the student and faculty work resonate with you? Is it of good quality? Would you feel good about having those artists as your peers? Look the school up on MySpace! What do students have to say about the programs and faculty? If you have questions before applying, can you get in touch with any faculty? Do they return your emails or calls?
Look at what classes the school offers. (Most schools offer some semblance of a course catalog online.) Is there a curriculum that meets your needs? If you want to study something specific, say, Fiber Arts, will you be able to get that instruction? Keep in mind that “Fine Arts” programs sometimes end up as dumping grounds for students that don’t fit in to more specialized programs. It’s a good sign when an art school offers more than just “Art.” Keep in mind that as a student, you are like a customer. You are in charge of your education, so make sure you get what you need. For me, that meant a lot of independent study and course substitution. So you’re an administrative headache. So what?
Now for the application process. Hint: If the school is still requiring slide carousels rather than digital portfolios, say no thanks. It’s a good indication they won’t be meeting what are now basic technological needs such as wifi, ethernet in dorms, digital projectors for presentations, digital cameras for you to borrow, and so on.
There is no way you can anticipate what the application review committee will or won’t like. Don’t overthink it. Simply put your best foot, and your best work, forward. If you need to have your portfolio photographed, it’s worth having it done professionally. A high-resolution digital portfolio is something you’ll be able to use for years.
When you get to school, get to know your professors. They’re there to help you. Sure, they’re busy. You have a right to some of their time, so insist on it. What if they’re not talkative enough at critiques? Ask them for more specific feedback about your work. If you don’t get along with a certain teacher, maybe you shouldn’t take any more of their classes. (Or maybe you should.) Figure out which faculty members return phone calls, answer emails, show up to meetings. If you’re having trouble getting something done administration-wise, the best thing to do is just show up in person. Show up to a class you want into. Show up to office hours for the prof you’d like to meet. The same advice goes for your peers. No student is an island — your fellow students are there to help you learn as well.
Okay, critiques suck, but you have to go to them. It’s your job to help them not suck. Ask specific questions, offer constructive criticism. Don’t fall back on “That’s nice, keep going,” or, “That just doesn’t work — for me.” If there’s something nobody’s saying, make it your job to say that. Do it without being an asshole.
If you know me personally, you know that I have big issues with art school and how it’s operated in America today. Here’s my argument in a nutshell: It is way way too easy to bullshit your way through art school. Try it — grab a canvas, dump bodily fluids all over it, lay it on the floor and do an interpretive dance to the recorded sounds of your Uncle Moe snoring. They will. Eat. It. Up. Any monkey can pour a bucket of paint onto a canvas and say, yay, I’m done! It’s a lot more challenging to actually make something. Rise to that challenge.
Prepare yourself for being surrounded by Wankers. (If you are already a Wanker, congratulations. You’ll fit right in.) Rise above it.
Avoiding the Wanker Effect is very simple. Do the work. Do work that your hero would be proud of. (When I was in college, I realized that if I wasn’t making paintings that were as good as a single panel of Arkham Asylum, I was kidding myself.) Good quality work speaks louder than any late-night coffeeshop conversation, any ironic haircut, any cute scarf, any act of Wankerism. If you don’t achieve that quality right away, derr, keep trying. That’s what school is for. Our reach is farther than our grasp.
Your education is what you make of it. No matter where you go to school, if you put in the hours and the passion, you’ll come away a better artist and a better person.
Thanks for listening.
I’d like to hear from you. If you’ve been through grad school, what tips can you share for people about to take the plunge? If you’re thinking of applying, do you have more questions? Let’s have ‘em.
Open Studio Friday 11/30/2007
November 23, 2007
Give Thanks for Line
November 22, 2007
Embrace your gesture. The line you draw is uniquely yours. Don’t erase; an unedited line is an honest line. No one else’s drawing will ever look exactly like yours.
Make your mark, keep it fresh.
Sketch for Normal, OK: Trent’s Mugshot
Ink on paper
Paper and Plastic, Part Two: Acrylic Gel Transfers
November 12, 2007
There are lots of ways to transfer an image from one surface to another. I use the acrylic gel transfer process to take ballpoint pen drawings and turn them into images that are waterproof and lightfast. The process I’ve described below can be used with photocopies, laser prints, and magazine pictures. It doesn’t work so well with inkjet prints, unless you count on the ink bleeding.
I recommend Golden Extra Heavy Gel (I like matte finish). You can use any kind of acrylic medium you like, but the thicker the gel, the sturdier and more complete your transfer will be. (Using thinner gel, or less of it, may give you a weathered kind of patina, but you’ll lose some of your image.)
1. Take your laser print, photocopy, or otherwise printed image. Apply a generous coat of acrylic gel to the image. It doesn’t matter how much of the paper you cover, as long as you cover every part of the image you wish to transfer. You don’t even need to thin the gel with water; in fact, water will hinder the process by diluting the gel and slowing your drying time.
Note: Your transfer will be a mirror image of your original. Plan for this by flipping the image in PhotoShop before you make a laser print. Also, most photocopy machines come with a mirror image feature built-in. Ask your friendly underpaid copy shop assistant for guidance.
Normal, OK: Tishomingo “Mingo” Yale
This is my original drawing of Mingo Yale, ballpoint pen on paper.
2. Let it dry completely, then repeat. I usually apply three solid coats of gel. Again, experiment with this process to achieve your desired effects.
2a. After your coats of gel are dry, but before you make the transfer, you can cut away the unused paper, or even parts of your image. It may be helpful to leave extra paper to hold onto, especially if you’re unused to this process. Keep in mind that the gel is bonding to the copier toner, so every little speck on your laser print or photocopy will transfer if it gets gel on it. This is your chance to control that.
2b. You can also apply acrylic paint during this process, for color. Your transferred image will be translucent, so color will show through. If you do this, remember to think like a glass painter or cel animator — in backwards layers. The same effect applies to your choice of transfer material. If you transfer onto white paper, the white will show through (or emphasize your colored acrylic layers). If you transfer on to a colored or patterned surface, that will show through, and may add to or interfere with your transferred image.
3. When your third coat of gel is dry, have your panel ready to transfer onto. Apply one more coat of gel to the image. While the gel is still wet, place the image face down on your panel. (You may want to make tic marks ahead of time, to register your corners.)
4. Using your hand, or other burnishing tool, rub the back of your paper firmly to glue the layers together. The tighter the seal, the more complete the image transfer will be. This works best on a rigid surface, not so well on traditionally stretched canvas. It is VERY IMPORTANT not to get any acrylic gel on the BACK of the paper. The paper must remain porous so water will penetrate it.
5. Let this dry completely, at least a couple of hours. Overnight is best. Press the layers together with books or heavy objects if possible.
6. When the sandwich is completely-I-really-mean-it-dry, sprinkle or spray the back of the paper with water. You just need enough to get the paper good and wet. Too much water will make a mess and make it more difficult to remove the paper. Using your fingers, or a sponge, or damp paper towel, rub the paper until it comes loose. Continue until all the little white fibery bits have come away. This is when you’ll find out if you applied enough gel, or too much or too little.
7. Voila! What you see now is, from top to bottom: Laser toner or copier toner, layers of acrylic gel and/or acrylic paint, then your panel. The top layer of toner is pretty solid, but you can always paint more on top of it or at least seal it with another layer of gel.
Normal, OK: Mingo Yale (in progress)
This is the post-transfer version. I began with a panel, gessoed it and painted it yellow. Before transferring, I cut around the image to avoid extraneous material transferring. Since making this particular transfer, I’ve noticed that I can trim right up to the edges of the image, and therefore control the physicality of my edge, eliminating any “halo” created by the thick acrylic gel. In this piece, I’ve downplayed the halo by painting around the transferred image with pink.
This process has opened up so many possibilities. Here are some other ideas:
Digitally altering scanned images, then printing and transferring
Turning digitally-created images into physical pieces
Making multiples, using different colors and materials
Transferring onto nontraditional surfaces (anything that acrylic will stick to)
Transferring different images onto a single surface, combining them
Of course there are unlimited directions in which this process could take you. Let me know how it works for you!
OK Gazette plugs Deco and Red shows
November 12, 2007
The Oklahoma Gazette recently mentioned two shows I participated in, Triple Deco (at IAO last month) and The Red Show.
The Red Show was a one-night compendium of fabulousness at aka Gallery in OKC. Sales from the show benefit the Red Line Foundation, a new non-profit organization that promotes AIDS/HIV awareness and education. You can read more about the Foundation here.
Here is the Gazette article on the Red Show.
Here is the Gazette article on the Triple Deco show.
The Arts editor for the Gazette, Joe Wertz, also does a weekly radio spot on our local NPR station. He spoke about the Triple Deco show on Friday, October 19th. Here’s a link to the mp3.
Paper and Plastic, Part One: Saving Pen Drawings
November 10, 2007
Oh no, I didn’t make my requisite post on Friday. Well, this one is extra-contenty.
Editor’s Note: I resolved a text-wrap issue, so the images are now embedded in this post.
I am so excited about this process I want everyone to know about it. I love drawing with ballpoint pens, in particular the Bic Round Stic Medium. (That’s the cheapest kind, as it happens.) No other pen gives me the sensitivity and tonal range that I can squeeze out of the Bic. It lets me go from the faintest gray to black without smearing, clumping, or draining my bank account.
So what’s the problem? For one thing, this ink is water-soluble, so it’s very difficult to employ in the mixed-media processes I use so much. The other, bigger, problem is that this ink is about as far from archival as it can get.
In the last year I made several portrait drawings using the following process:
1. Stretch a canvas in the usual manner. For me, this means a masonite or MDF panel covered with canvas or another heavy duty cloth. Sometimes, I sand a panel and apply several layers of gesso with acrylic mixed in for color.
2. Create a collage from print sources, including photos, magazine pictures, and found paper (text, patterns, etc).
Collage sketch for Normal, OK: Dallas Amarillo
3. Using heavy-duty paper such as Stonehenge, I cut out a rough shape approximating the shape of the collage character. I adhere this paper to the canvas with Golden Acrylic Extra Heavy Matte gel medium. Sometimes I apply some color to the paper shape. I enjoy starting with a rough shape so I can treat it as a set of parameters. Then I draw the character within those (somewhat arbitrary) borders, problem-solving along the way.
Normal, OK: Lawton Amarillo
I began this piece with canvas stretched over masonite and primed with gesso and acrylic. The figure is one piece of paper, glued to the canvas, then drawn with Bic ballpoint pen.
So far so good. At this point I could continue with an archival pen such as the Pigma Micron, but I don’t like the high-contrast appearance of that ink, especially on smooth surfaces. (I like those pens for drawing directly on unprimed canvas or Stonehenge paper with no gesso or acrylic.)
Normal, OK: Taylor Hutto
Taylor is canvas stretched on masonite, lightly primed with tinted gesso. The figure is drawn directly on the canvas with the Pigma Micron 005 pen.
But this is what I did instead:
4. Draw the character (based on the collage-sketch) on the collaged paper using the tasty tasty Bic ballpoint.
Normal, OK: Hinton Geary
Upholstery fabric stretched on particle board, collaged paper, figures drawn with Bic ballpoint pen.
5. Hang on a wall for a month, watch as the ink oxidizes and fades.
6. Panic.
Recently I figured a way around this. I can still draw the pen portraits using my trusty Bic. I take the finished drawing and photocopy it or scan it and make a laser print. Then I make an acrylic gel transfer.
Tomorrow I’ll describe the transfer process.
Book Mooch Journal: Dogs
November 6, 2007
I made this ink drawing for the Book Mooch Journal “Why We Love Dogs”. Read more about the Book Mooch Journal Project here.
Video Interview from Triple Deco Show
November 4, 2007
I had an interesting surprise at the opening reception for Triple Deco — a camera crew. They were from Sonarta, a web showcase for Oklahoma artists. Please visit their site and browse the interviews with my comrades.
Illustration Friday: Hat Man
November 2, 2007
This unfinished ink sketch is from my 2006 Family Portraits series. I have been working with a process of transferring ink drawings to a more lightfast medium (more on that soon). This drawing may have a second life for the Normal project.
See the rest of Illustration Friday here.
And Twice On Sunday: VMII Nov and Dec
November 1, 2007
I’m in a new three-gal show, with Ashley Griffith and Carlie Bentley, opening at the Velvet Monkey Too Salon in Oklahoma City. I made some saints and stuff, so my series is called And Twice On Sunday.
The opening reception is Saturday, November 3, from 7 to 9 pm. VMII is located at NW 63rd and May. The show will be up through the end of December 2007.