7/30/2019 After Artschool 1- A Sketch

1/2

WHAT TO DO WITH AN ART SCHOOL DEGREE?

The former art student, now alumna, sits in her old alma mater and ponders how to write

a manual for individuals that have graduated from art school. Sort of like a manual for an

appliance, push button A, push button B and you get to goal C. There are other fields of

study which delve into the study of course of action much more in depth than art schools

do. If you study business, there are recruiting fairs and recruiting centers on campus. At

least that is how it looks from this vantage point, from the vantage point of the former art

student, now alumna. Art school spits you out and then it is sink or swim. More so than in

other fields. She scratches her head, maybe she is wrong. She just purchased the book

ARTSCHOOL ny Stephen Madoff, it looks like an interesting read. She has not opened

the cellophane shrink-wrap as of yet, she wants to read it on her trip to nyc. She ponders,

people who graduate from art school, usually make the trek to new york, the idea is that

you can start a career in the arts out of new york much easier than you can start it from

somewhere else in north america. Then there is London, Tokio, Shanghai, Doha,

Amsterdam, it always seems that the grass is greener somewhere else. Milan, Paris,

Reykjavik, St. Petersburg, Tabriz. Anything but stagnation, anything but staying put.

After a BFA it is on to an MFA and then a PhD, there are so many options for an artist,

apparently, apparently. Open a gallery, become Saatchi and Saatchi 2.0. Make films, be

the guy who made Schindlers List or Family Guy, you take your pick. Or just write, be

Strindberg or ONeill. Be dead, that seems always a wise career move for an artist. Be

male. Or complain about the boys making more money per hour, which ever, whatever.

Complain about having not enough rights or having too many rights. Live your life, have

a coffee or a tea, which ever, whenever.

7/30/2019 After Artschool 1- A Sketch

2/2

She sits in the art school library. looks to her right, sees the word DIALOGUE written on

the grey wall on the second floor, in monumental letters, she chats with a pretty lady for

moments, for moments, she pushes down the haltingsh keys on the

keyboard, she is not quite sure why her mini-dissertation morphed into

a grocery list of sorts, a weird and strange sketch, for moments and for

moments. A woman bikes by outside, it is may five in two thousand

and thirteen, we have 425 words here, and this will not become some

scholarly text that will be published by MIT press. Then again, never

ever say never. Yup, 452 words it is, it is, this is what you do after art

school, you type away, then copy and paste, then find a publisher, yup,

why not and why not and why not? Put the commas where they

belong, except if you are writing experimental, whatever that means,

whatever that means. Yesterdays experimental is todays historical

text. 511, 511, 511 and still 511. Words that is. Actually, five and two

and nine.