Art graduates:


Funny and truly…

Well that was a particularly bad headline from Huffpo. For those who didn’t read the whole article, the whole sentence is “Yeah, you’re f***ed. The good news is that that’s not a bad place to start.”

It’s a speech about how maybe artists didn’t choose a financially sound major but that art is important and it’s important to be willing to be an artist even when you won’t be making a lot of money. Then Huffpo decided to spin it into some sort of De Niro hates artists piece.

You draw in more readers with just the headline of “Yeah, you’re f***ed.” though :slight_smile:

And just look at what was the result of Mr. Steve Jobs “hanging out in calligraphy classes …”

I hope that all of you are Young Turks, such that you never saw WordPerfect for DOS. (And, Dear God, I hope you never do.) But you can be sure that word processing (and everything else) would not have advanced beyond that stage if Steve had not been interested in … art.

“Accountants” do, however, have a legitimate place in life: they do the quarterly taxes and royalty-reporting for the artists! :yes:

“Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb!” Who cares about practicality? If we all wanted that we’d all be engineers.

Engineers are the type that is in that position to blend practical reasoning ability, with both artistic flair and madness.
Seriously many of the the engineers I know are about 3 degree’s more functional then the residents of a psych ward. Although that might have more to do with dealing with the non’s then it does with the field.

Dunno… “practical computer graphics” is pretty darned close to an “engineering” discipline, too. It’s really an application of “software engineering,” whether you write the code or merely (sic …) apply it to a problem.

And so, are the people who do such a thing, “three degrees away from a psych-ward?” Dunno. Countin’ flowers on the wall don’t bother me at all, and my life would be much easier if I could keep those daisies from trying to take a free ride on the ceiling fan (which smells like lemons and is presently singing classical arias, much too loudly) …

Nope. They’re just nice, normal, well-adjusted engineers. :smiley:

It’s very strange because US produces about almost every aspect of all entertainment media in the world. How is it possible to be a bad career choice?

Either literally or metaphorically?

You mean is better get totally worthless job, at least you will be working right?

the 3 degree’s from a psych ward are
1- ability to eat and crap with out assistance
2- ability to show up to work everyday
3- the ability not to fracture the law and or not scare the living crap out of people with the words coming out of your mouth.

Art and acting or theatre has always been a bitch. Name the people from your hometown who have made a living off of either one. Yeah, that’s right. Or, for that matter name anyone from the college you graduated from. Out of all those graduates over the years one name might come to mind. Now that doesn’t mean a endless college debt while waiting tables. To me it simply means artist are starting with one foot in a bucket. And, that is the challenge they take on with that major. In the business world they are simply the easiest to fuck over. That’s assuming they can even make it to that point.

What the world needs are “art graduates” who understand the business of making, producing, publishing and selling “art.”

I think that “an artist” is “someone who knows what [some …] people like.” People generally spend money on things that they like, and sometimes they spend lots of money. The artist is the person who is both “a studier of people,” and “a practitioner of technique.” If you are a CG artist, then you either have mastered or are mastering a truly ridiculous amount of painstaking technique and pure-technical skill, because your “brush of choice” is a digital computer, and your delivery-medium is probably also electronic. :eek:

Then, if you prefer not to be a starving artist, those many-other people also come into play, to turn your artistic creation into a marketable, deliverable product. As the artist, though, you’re the one that first hands them the germ of a product to sell. A good engineer can execute anything … but he might have no clue what the product should be. He has no “idea.” But, artist, you do.

What the world needs are “art graduates” who understand the business of making, producing, publishing and
selling “art.”

Just going through old post and no one is likely to see this. But, I couldn’t agree more. Young artist, photographers included, tend to start out selling their skills to cheap. Screwing themselves and established artist. Maybe in the second or forth year a business course would be appropriate. Now a CG artist interviewing for a 1st studio job is pretty much just trying to get a foot in the door I would think.

The one person I know who made it as fine artist happens to be a childhood friend. And, in personal correspondence and visiting his site it has become obvious at some point he grasped the business of art along with a talented oil brush. But, even then for many years he had an agent. Even many years ago when illustration was in it’s heyday artist didn’t want to deal with business types. And, having done a little of that many years ago I can’t blame them.

///

I’ve been fascinated with computers, and computer-programming, since I was a kid … and “I was a kid” (ahem) when computers were the size of ovens and bread-boxes. My first job consisted of tearing pages off a line-printer and shoving them through the appropriate slot in the wall that separated the (other …) students, at their terminals, from the computer in the room that I was in. I faithfully stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, just to be on "that side of the door …

… and “(koff koff) years later,” I still am fascinated with computers, and I still love what I do. :slight_smile:

Mr. DeNiro “conveniently” forgets to mention the hundreds of hours that he spent on a movie set, in god-awful places and at god-awful hours of the morning or the night, “professionally doing What He Does,” so that “whatever project he was working on” would have the best possible chances of success … even if it flopped.

I think that absolutely the most-important thing that every would-be professional must learn is: “how to be … professional.” :slight_smile:

“Dammit, I can’t draw!” My nephew makes it look effortless. (I hate his guts … ;)) Therefore, if I need “drawing” done, I need to be able to contract with a professional who will:

  • Put up with me … :rolleyes: … then
  • Dazzle me! :smiley: … then …
  • Shrewdly hand me a stack of his/her business cards.

People who feel the same way about “what I happen to be able to (by now …) ‘do fairly effortlessly,’” also keep me in gravy-and-biscuits. Because: “I am also a professional.” My word is my bond, and my contracts will be exceeded, and wouldn’t you like to have a few of my business-cards …