Life after art school in 3 words

How is life after art school? I’ll share three words with you. Well, OK, I’ll share 3 words in 2 different ways and reveal my MA roots, too.

Wicked awesome exciting

Wicked awesome scary

Why is life after art school wicked awesome exciting? As one classmate described it, “I feel as if I am free!” Meaning? Free to paint whatever we want, whenever we want.

But then there’s the other version of the 3 words. What? As one classmate described it, “Now I know why prisoners set free from jail, need recidivism training.”

Really?

Yes, the training in art school is rigorous and structured and disciplined. Now the trick is to continue that rigor and structure and discipline. And, it’s really going to help that we learned drawing, painting and how to cultivate a critical eye.

But now there’s additional hustle involved. Hustle? Well, it’s time to sell. And, even though some consider this the dark side of art making, the fact is, it’s a nice idea to sell work every now and then. Yes?

So, I have a huge ‘to do’ list for the business side of art including updating this site with work for sale. I promise this will happen but it’s an incremental plan that will take sometime.

In the interim, we are planning to stay in Philadelphia for 1 more year. This means I can continue to work on my technical drawing and painting skills. That also means I will take time out to go back to basics. So, taking some time to do fundamentals such as the gesture painting at the beginning of this post. Why? Just as runners need to practice sprints and longer runs, painters and artists can hone skills by practicing quick gestures such as this one I did today which I completed in less than twenty minutes. But, twenty minutes, plus 4 years of constant study, is the real amount of time it takes.

And, as with most work, the studying and learning and refining never ends! So, yes, school is over but the learning goes on.

What’s percolating in your world? Here’s hoping it’s both ‘wicked awesome exciting’ and ‘wicked awesome scary.’