Bodie Chewning<\/a>, 49, went to New York\u2019s prestigious School of Visual Arts (SVA) from 1991 to 1993. He dropped out, but is still making a living as a concept artist in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They both attended art school a while ago, and the landscape has changed a lot. I wanted to talk to a more recent art school attendee, as well. And I found one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachael Forbes<\/a>, 23, obtained a Fine Arts degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2021. She\u2019s not currently employed in the arts, but instead is working an unrelated job on-campus as she saves to return to school for her Master\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their experiences are diverse, and yet it should be noted that they aren\u2019t exhaustive. Your experience could be totally different! Take their first-person perspectives for what they are, and make your own decision after doing plenty of research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachael:<\/strong> Yes. I want to be an art historian, and I have a Fine Art degree with a minor in Art History \u2026 so now I need to go back to school. But for a lot of people who just want to be an established artist, a Fine Art degree is all they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric:<\/strong> I was shockingly cavalier about what I was going to do with my degree, because I had no idea what I was doing. Part of it was my background, coming from a very rural place where an art career was a foreign concept. When I left a long-tenured art job in 2018, my father suggested I \u201cget a job working outside.\u201d They still have no idea what I do for a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bodie:<\/strong> Probably the latter \u2026 I was thinking of doing comics at the time of application, and SVA\u2019s big line was that their professors were all \u201cworking professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachael:<\/strong> A pretty good-sized one. I was lucky enough to be able to split it with my family, so I have 50% of the debt and my parents have 50% of the debt \u2014 but considering my 50% is $30,000 without any student loan forgiveness, it\u2019s still pretty sizable to have to carry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric:<\/strong> One of the few fortunes of being an elder millennial is that I got in before the dramatic rise in tuition. My parents were able to afford to put me through a state school, and I never had any loans after getting my undergraduate degree. Even in the 2000s, I was aware how lucky I was to not have that debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bodie:<\/strong> None, as I was lucky enough to have scholarships and family help. Also, \u201891 to \u201993 tuition was like a fraction \u2014 well under $20k if I remember correctly \u2014 of what it is now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachael:<\/strong> Very. Nowadays I don\u2019t practice as much anymore because I work full-time, but it\u2019s ingrained in me from how much I did it. I don\u2019t find myself coming back to a painting after a few months and being like, \u201cOh no, I lost all ability to paint!\u201d I will never forget how to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric:<\/strong> As a neurodivergent person who discovered their ADHD in their mid 30\u2019s, I don\u2019t think I really learned any discipline, nor will I ever. It\u2019s nearly impossible for me. I did, however, learn a great work ethic, and that has served me well in everything I have ever done \u2026 work ethic and discipline might look the same from the outside, but internally it\u2019s very different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bodie:<\/strong> Oof! I didn\u2019t really understand the utility of basic art skills and discipline at that age, so I\u2019ve gotta say I really just staggered through it all. Had a tough time making deadlines and keeping my ambitions realistic in any way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachael:<\/strong> Both. It really forces a large amount of practice. At my school, every single studio art class required eight hours outside of class a week in-studio. So I was practicing 40 hours a week outside of classes on top of the classes themselves \u2026 so 60 hours a week at least. It\u2019s a lot, but it was worth it. It forced me to get really good at what I was doing because I had no choice but to show up and put [in the time].<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric<\/strong>: This is a difficult question, because I think after maybe a few semesters it all felt self-taught. We had a very rigid and academic school, but I feel like the inspiration and good critique [made me the person I am]. It\u2019s difficult to say where any direction from a professor ends and mine begins, at least in terms of illustration. In terms of design, I had little-to-no idea what I was doing, so it was almost entirely them. I felt like I was struggling for quite some time. But it was an environment that I needed in order to grow as an artist, and I think all young artists should look for this, no matter where they find it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bodie:<\/strong> I\u2019d say it was a mix. As a first-year illustration major, I found the basic instruction was all solid, with drawing and anatomy shining above the rest. When I switched to animation in year two, it was a very different story. It became more about access to basic tools like 16mm film and Oxberry [animation stands<\/a>] and exposure to larger sound design and motion-control systems. And the teachers\u2019 industry stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found my time in Voltaire\u2019s class \u2014 a continuing-education stop-motion film class I took for about three months after dropping out \u2014 to be a more useful experience than my three years as a \u201cmatriculating\u201d art school student combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, Aurelio. Funny, he used to go by just the one name. He was kind of an East Village goth personality and fixture during my time at SVA. I had a real bonding experience during my time in his class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric:<\/strong> Is that what they really say? I\u2019ve gotten zero job placements or gigs out of art school chums, even though I am still in contact with a good many of them. I worked on a Ludum Dare game project<\/a> with my friend Will Jardine, and I have tried to hire my friends that went into web development or design. It\u2019s not really gone very far even though some of my friends from that time have gone on to be quite successful. All my useful networking seemed to happen in my 30s. In my experience, networking at cons or in your local art scene is more fun and useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bodie:<\/strong> Probably Voltaire. Everyone I met and the entire experience counted \u2026 but he became a locus for my eventual understanding of how one might carve a path through that particular niche industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s been even more useful \u2014 and interesting \u2014 to me is coming into contact with the people who went to the very same program ten years after me. That whole class is a group of comics and illustration powerhouses: James Jean<\/a>, Mu Pan<\/a>, Farel Dalrymple<\/a>, and Chris MacDonald<\/a> and his Meathaus zine crew<\/a> are some of the most influential and inspiring artists to me presently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachael:<\/strong> It really helped. It really, really helped. I don\u2019t think you have to go to art school in order to be a successful artist, but if you need the resources and don\u2019t have somebody to actively teach you or help you, or you don\u2019t find the internet as helpful as other people, I think art school can really \u2026 propel you. You get a lot of resources, you get contacts, and most of your professors are pretty renowned or established, so usually you can go back to them later and ask for some push.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The debt\u2019s a lot. College in general is unattainable sometimes for people, and it\u2019s really hard as a regular working-class person to pay off that kind of debt. Especially for artists, because a lot go into that career without a lot of money promised to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But It\u2019s all about what you make it. It\u2019s not always for everybody, but in general, college is good if you want to do it, and it can be super helpful in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric:<\/strong> I\u2019ve had a pretty decent career and have been able to do fairly well for myself because of my degree, and been able to do very impressive things as a result of the brutally hard work I put in during those years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Going through college with no idea I had ADHD was incredibly hard on my mental and physical health. I look at that as the main price I paid since I had the good fortune to get out without debt. I think without a college education, I would be miserable, living in my small rural hometown, making bad folk art and working at a furniture store. If you live in NYC or San Jose, CA, maybe you can get away without an education. But for nearly everyone else on Earth, I feel pretty strongly that higher education is a net positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bodie:<\/strong> This is something I still struggle with at 49. On one hand, most of my professors suggested dropping out to get a job in the industry. And I do believe experiences and execution count most, so that is a valid path. But on the other hand, I\u2019ve been wishing I could go back to school and finish ever since I dropped out, although I\u2019m still trying to train myself and keep growing on my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think, if you\u2019re the kind of person who can flourish under self-imposed regimens and find your own way to what you need, that it\u2019s probably not necessary. But if you need [designated] time [to practice], and can use that time [wisely], school can be a real great opportunity depending on what you get up to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feature image photo by Matthew Henry<\/a> on Burst<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Should you go to art school? We interviewed three professional art schools about how their expectations compared to the reality of attending art school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":806772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2568,2330,2551,2550,2656],"tags":[2367,789,2368],"class_list":["post-806719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","category-creative-education","category-learn-creative-education","category-learn-to-draw-with-wacom","category-education","tag-careers","tag-jobs","tag-life-after-art-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Art](\"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/06\/raychan-kJQ6cDyodAM-unsplash.jpg\" "\\"Art")
Did you have plans for what you wanted to do with your degree, or did you just see it as a means to get any industry job?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How much of a burden is or was your student loan debt?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Part of the appeal for some aspiring students is that the challenge of having to meet deadlines will force them to produce art. How valuable did that discipline turn out to be?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How much of the art skill you came away with ended up being from instruction vs. self-taught for projects?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Wait, I just realized\u2026 Do you mean Aurelio Voltaire<\/a>?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Aurelio](\"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2023\/06\/Aurelio_Voltaire_Wave-Gotik-Treffen_2016_03.jpg\" "\\"Aurelio_Voltaire_Wave-Gotik-Treffen_2016_03\\"")
It\u2019s said that the most valuable thing about art school is the contacts, another common draw for prospective students. Did you make any there who helped you in your career later?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Art](\"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2022\/11\/Wacom-Art-Student-Blog_CanadaDay-3.jpg\" "\\"Wacom-one-art-student-2\\"")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nAnd finally, the question this has all been leading up to: Was it worth it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n