Advice for Art Students

I was thinking about my post secondary education in ‘Fine Art’, and it struck me that there were so many expectations that came with enrollment that the students knew little or nothing about. So often, a student would make something that they were reeeeally happy with, only to have it bashed to pieces in a critique by a professor who found it to be cliché. It turns out that although a first-year student might be having his or her first blissful encounters with duct-tape, the professors have seen enough duct-tape. ENOUGH. Seriously.

I wanted to put some of the common ‘clichés’ here, so that any pending Fine Arts students can be forewarned.

Clichéd Materials
Duct Tape
Masking Tape
Green Painter’s Tape
Oil Pastels / Oil Sticks
Anything ‘Free’ at your campus (ie. wooden coffee stirrers, brown kraft paper… trust me, they know where you’re getting this stuff from)
Glitter
Splattered Paint

Clichéd Themes
Fruit
Your Pet(s)
Your Kid(s)
Cars
Naked Women Posing Moodily
Sunsets
Angsty Self-Portraits
Birds / Bird Nests

Please note—I don’t think you should take my lists as definitive; there are bound to be instructors out there who haven’t gotten their fill, or who have a particular vendetta against watercolour or what-have-you.

If you feel confident that you can do something really great with the clichéd materials and themes, go for it! I know plenty of artists who make their livings dealing in glitter and baby portraits and what-have you (but remember, Art School is nothing like real life…)

Just don’t under-do it… go full out! I think that the sin that art students most commonly commit is sloth. They get lazy, and think, “Oh, it’s done enough.” Trust me; it shouldn’t be ‘done’ until you’re out of time. If you are going to make a glitter and green painter’s tape sculpture of your cat, it had better be the biggest, best, glitteriest ever—or there should be forty little ones, all done in minute detail, each with a tiny glittering fish in its mouth. Let your piece live up to its full potential—don’t half-ass it!

Just don’t use duct tape. Ever.