Salad days / When I [am] green in judgment
April 02, 2009
I had hoped, when I left for Scotland, to be able to post some kind of definitive anecdote on my return--either saying I'd marched straight into the registry after my inspirational tour of the ECA, and immediately signed the admissions papers; or that I'd suffered terrible food poisoning at the hands of a spoiled haggis, spent a week in a Scottish hospital, been robbed by a highwayman, and never want to set food in the country again. Something certain. I love traveling, I love the pressure it puts on the understood boundaries of oneself, and I realize now that I was earnestly hoping for some kind of transformation. (Otherwise why would I go to Scotland in March, the off-season, when the country is still in hibernation and cannot reasonably be expected to have its most engaging face on.) I was hoping to love it or hate it; I wanted the country itself to exercise some influence, so that I wouldn't feel that this next chapter of my life relies so terrifyingly and exclusively on my decision.
Well, it didn't happen. Paul and I had a fine trip and later I will be posting stories about our adventures, but I am no closer to making a decision about grad school that I was when I left. I find this very disappointing, as you must imagine, and moreover frustrating. (Even though the sentiment has very little to do with anything I did or saw, the money I spent, the food I ate, the people I spoke with, or the hundreds of times I had to blow my nose.) The decision still stands before me, looming larger and more insistent by the day, because if I am going to go I have to put the paperwork in motion soon--immediately--and if I am not, then I have to determine another course of action, because as much as I enjoy my current job I have no desire to spend another year in the chocolate factory.
The school itself is...fine. The Edinburgh College of Art is housed in a handful of large, well-equipped, well-maintained buildings in the Old Town of the city. A second-year MFA Painting student named Kathryn led my tour. She was a good match, since she hails from Mississippi and got her undergraduate degree in the States, and she was able to give a candid and particularly American perspective on the college's academic structure. (Sadly she is a married student, and couldn't answer some of my more practical questions about living and working in the UK.) Some of the discrepancies she highlighted didn't faze me, like the particularly British emphasis on the written aspect of the degree, and the 10,000 word accompaniment to one's degree show (I got home and found that my thesis was 24,000 words), and the fact that a lot of students are coming straight out of their undergraduate programs with none of the traditional American "time off."
It does bother me (as it clearly bothered her) that the written and practical aspects of one's degree are so separate. I don't remember her talking about professors at all; weekly critiques are apparently peer-based, and I confess that I have never found that arrangement very productive. I was disappointed to find that apart from some lectures on 1980s Postmodern Theory (which Kathryn found so dull that she stopped attending) there is little inclusion of art history in the curriculum. (Yes, the library and museums are all at one's disposal, but still.) The studios are nice, but shared (about four students per space); the sculpture studios are closed to painting majors "for safety reasons," which means finding other (and inevitably more expensive) avenues for building stretchers; the building hours are strictly enforced, and students are not given keys to the building, so there's none of this loosey-goosey self-directed semi-residential studio dynamic that was fostered at Reed. I'm okay with that, I think. The student body is very international, which pleased me, and the work that they produce is very...diverse. This is always a stumbling block for me, because as much I want to appreciate the creative freedom of the time period I live in, I don't have a lot of interest in non-objective painting; never mind the fact that I can never find anything to say about an installation piece made of torn and painted fabric strung across a room with shoelaces.
Sounds to me like the college will collect their fees and leave me to it. They won't teach me anything, unless a session of peer revisions proves unprecedentedly enlightening. When all is said and done, living in an academic setting again would hopefully provide the impetus and motivation to work that I so desperately lack. The question is whether I feel that two years' motivation is worth some $30,000 that I must perforce beg from my parents (because I can't afford to buy an MFA any more than I can afford to buy a private island in the South Pacific). Now, I'll be fair, I don't feel that I learned a damn thing about painting at Reed, either. But when I decided to attend Reed (and, after my first two farcical "Visual Concepts" classes, to stay at Reed), it was with the full (if not always enthusiastic) awareness that I wanted a liberal arts education, not merely an art education. The position has changed now; the MFA is an art degree, and it should be focusing on art-making. It makes some sense that an MFA program doesn't offer art history classes; I don't like it, but that isn't what the curriculum is about. What I have a hard time accepting is the chasm between my wish to be a "master" in the fine art of my choice, and the fact that I can't find a school that actually teaches mastery in the fine art of my choice. How can I specialize and compromise at the same time?
I can't help but wonder if I simply won't find a school with a taught curriculum that suits my "traditional" approach to image-making, and maybe a decent school in a good location is simply the next best thing. Or at least, enough to be getting on with. The pamphlet outlining the MFA graduate curriculum includes a list of the top 10 reasons that students choose ECA, and--tellingly--the number one reason is location. I find this refreshingly straightforward but I've got to admit that Edinburgh isn't terribly prepossessing. It's pretty grungy, to be honest. There's a reason it used to be called Auld Reekie; on damp days the city still has an odor. The Old Town is winding and narrow, dim, and claustrophobic; it was bounded by fortress walls and consequently built upwards for hundreds of years. There's a castle, yes, and a lot of interesting history, but the Edinburgers don't coexist with that history, they declare it a UNESCO World Heritage Site, install a lot of postcard racks, and then move to the suburbs. The city center's focus on exclusively seasonal tourist traffic (Edinburgh doubles in size during the Festival in August) reminded me a bit of Nürnberg (for the Kriskindlesmarkt) or Munich (for Oktoberfest), but unlike those cities, Edinburgh doesn't seem to have a lot character apart from all that. Maybe I am splitting hairs. But even Paul observed that it seemed a bit run-down compared to the last time he visited. The point here is that I was not enchanted. Edinburgh has none of the wild beauty that I saw in the Highlands. And when I consider the appalling cost of living in the UK, the trouble of getting a visa, finding an affordable flat, moving my belongings, and abandoning my cat (which feels like a betrayal in itself)--not to mention the inevitable academic frustrations of long, meaningless papers, uncooperative administration, boring lectures, and professors who have no interest in fostering my old-fashioned brand of painting--I want to love where I am living.
So, poop. By all appearances the ECA has failed on both criteria. One part of me thinks that is more than ample reason to reexamine my goals, shelve grad school for the present, and go in search of other adventures. Another part of me wisely observes that no school, no city, and no situation in life is ever going to be spot-on, and holding out for a summons from God is an unrealistic and immature way of looking at education (and life). Not to mention a very poor excuse for sitting around and doing nothing. Oh dearie me, my parents are willing to pay for a master's degree and I get all hung up on the meaning of a "master's" degree. Excellent work is never produced out of the blue; it requires practice, frustration, and copious amounts of waste--of money, of materials, of time and energy. I went to Scotland hoping for transformation, and just because I didn't find it is no reason to dismiss my admission to the college. Without question I still want to get out of the States; I didn't fall in love with Scotland and I can see that I wouldn't want to live there forever, but perhaps we can just be friends and I can live and work there fruitfully for a couple of years. You can do anything for a year! This is the doctrine that drove my family's peregrinations across the globe throughout for most of my life, why is it suddenly not enough? Have I gone soft???
I don't know.
Well, it didn't happen. Paul and I had a fine trip and later I will be posting stories about our adventures, but I am no closer to making a decision about grad school that I was when I left. I find this very disappointing, as you must imagine, and moreover frustrating. (Even though the sentiment has very little to do with anything I did or saw, the money I spent, the food I ate, the people I spoke with, or the hundreds of times I had to blow my nose.) The decision still stands before me, looming larger and more insistent by the day, because if I am going to go I have to put the paperwork in motion soon--immediately--and if I am not, then I have to determine another course of action, because as much as I enjoy my current job I have no desire to spend another year in the chocolate factory.
The school itself is...fine. The Edinburgh College of Art is housed in a handful of large, well-equipped, well-maintained buildings in the Old Town of the city. A second-year MFA Painting student named Kathryn led my tour. She was a good match, since she hails from Mississippi and got her undergraduate degree in the States, and she was able to give a candid and particularly American perspective on the college's academic structure. (Sadly she is a married student, and couldn't answer some of my more practical questions about living and working in the UK.) Some of the discrepancies she highlighted didn't faze me, like the particularly British emphasis on the written aspect of the degree, and the 10,000 word accompaniment to one's degree show (I got home and found that my thesis was 24,000 words), and the fact that a lot of students are coming straight out of their undergraduate programs with none of the traditional American "time off."
It does bother me (as it clearly bothered her) that the written and practical aspects of one's degree are so separate. I don't remember her talking about professors at all; weekly critiques are apparently peer-based, and I confess that I have never found that arrangement very productive. I was disappointed to find that apart from some lectures on 1980s Postmodern Theory (which Kathryn found so dull that she stopped attending) there is little inclusion of art history in the curriculum. (Yes, the library and museums are all at one's disposal, but still.) The studios are nice, but shared (about four students per space); the sculpture studios are closed to painting majors "for safety reasons," which means finding other (and inevitably more expensive) avenues for building stretchers; the building hours are strictly enforced, and students are not given keys to the building, so there's none of this loosey-goosey self-directed semi-residential studio dynamic that was fostered at Reed. I'm okay with that, I think. The student body is very international, which pleased me, and the work that they produce is very...diverse. This is always a stumbling block for me, because as much I want to appreciate the creative freedom of the time period I live in, I don't have a lot of interest in non-objective painting; never mind the fact that I can never find anything to say about an installation piece made of torn and painted fabric strung across a room with shoelaces.
Sounds to me like the college will collect their fees and leave me to it. They won't teach me anything, unless a session of peer revisions proves unprecedentedly enlightening. When all is said and done, living in an academic setting again would hopefully provide the impetus and motivation to work that I so desperately lack. The question is whether I feel that two years' motivation is worth some $30,000 that I must perforce beg from my parents (because I can't afford to buy an MFA any more than I can afford to buy a private island in the South Pacific). Now, I'll be fair, I don't feel that I learned a damn thing about painting at Reed, either. But when I decided to attend Reed (and, after my first two farcical "Visual Concepts" classes, to stay at Reed), it was with the full (if not always enthusiastic) awareness that I wanted a liberal arts education, not merely an art education. The position has changed now; the MFA is an art degree, and it should be focusing on art-making. It makes some sense that an MFA program doesn't offer art history classes; I don't like it, but that isn't what the curriculum is about. What I have a hard time accepting is the chasm between my wish to be a "master" in the fine art of my choice, and the fact that I can't find a school that actually teaches mastery in the fine art of my choice. How can I specialize and compromise at the same time?
I can't help but wonder if I simply won't find a school with a taught curriculum that suits my "traditional" approach to image-making, and maybe a decent school in a good location is simply the next best thing. Or at least, enough to be getting on with. The pamphlet outlining the MFA graduate curriculum includes a list of the top 10 reasons that students choose ECA, and--tellingly--the number one reason is location. I find this refreshingly straightforward but I've got to admit that Edinburgh isn't terribly prepossessing. It's pretty grungy, to be honest. There's a reason it used to be called Auld Reekie; on damp days the city still has an odor. The Old Town is winding and narrow, dim, and claustrophobic; it was bounded by fortress walls and consequently built upwards for hundreds of years. There's a castle, yes, and a lot of interesting history, but the Edinburgers don't coexist with that history, they declare it a UNESCO World Heritage Site, install a lot of postcard racks, and then move to the suburbs. The city center's focus on exclusively seasonal tourist traffic (Edinburgh doubles in size during the Festival in August) reminded me a bit of Nürnberg (for the Kriskindlesmarkt) or Munich (for Oktoberfest), but unlike those cities, Edinburgh doesn't seem to have a lot character apart from all that. Maybe I am splitting hairs. But even Paul observed that it seemed a bit run-down compared to the last time he visited. The point here is that I was not enchanted. Edinburgh has none of the wild beauty that I saw in the Highlands. And when I consider the appalling cost of living in the UK, the trouble of getting a visa, finding an affordable flat, moving my belongings, and abandoning my cat (which feels like a betrayal in itself)--not to mention the inevitable academic frustrations of long, meaningless papers, uncooperative administration, boring lectures, and professors who have no interest in fostering my old-fashioned brand of painting--I want to love where I am living.
So, poop. By all appearances the ECA has failed on both criteria. One part of me thinks that is more than ample reason to reexamine my goals, shelve grad school for the present, and go in search of other adventures. Another part of me wisely observes that no school, no city, and no situation in life is ever going to be spot-on, and holding out for a summons from God is an unrealistic and immature way of looking at education (and life). Not to mention a very poor excuse for sitting around and doing nothing. Oh dearie me, my parents are willing to pay for a master's degree and I get all hung up on the meaning of a "master's" degree. Excellent work is never produced out of the blue; it requires practice, frustration, and copious amounts of waste--of money, of materials, of time and energy. I went to Scotland hoping for transformation, and just because I didn't find it is no reason to dismiss my admission to the college. Without question I still want to get out of the States; I didn't fall in love with Scotland and I can see that I wouldn't want to live there forever, but perhaps we can just be friends and I can live and work there fruitfully for a couple of years. You can do anything for a year! This is the doctrine that drove my family's peregrinations across the globe throughout for most of my life, why is it suddenly not enough? Have I gone soft???
I don't know.
i felt similarly while trying to decide on a grad school; i recall actually stating once that i just wanted someone to tell me where to go to grad school (i was deciding amongst four, but really between two). i never want anyone to tell me what to do during life decisions, so that's indicative of my stress level at the time.
i was truly torn between the idea of going Somewhere Else (stateside; abroad was entirely out of the question b/c lack of funds, not to mention licensure problems) to live for grad school, or completing grad school at my undergrad school and living Somewhere Else later, when i had more money and more time to enjoy it. it turns out i had mini-experiences with Somewhere Else during grad school internships, and went through another stressful decision about turning down a dream job in alaska, but ultimately the true Somewhere Else experience didn't come till i came to oregon. (still suffering lack of funds and licensure problems precluding departure for parts foreign, though less severe)
ultimately, moving to oregon was a very lightbulb sort of moment. i don't know enough about your particular situation and you to say one way or the other, but i'm glad i waited for the lightbulb. good luck with your decision! i'm sure it will be the correct one.
:) liz
And here I thought you had pretty much decided going by our conversation on the train to Glasgow.
Honestly, the two most positive factors about ECA, in my mind, is the international student body and the fact that for cheaper than a state-side school you will be forced to produce art for two years, which I think is what you desperately want and need.
But, yes, I think you have realized that there is not much else to love there. Edinburgh (at least the city centre) is not all too exciting. The school as a whole sounds like a rather frustrating place to learn and build your craft. And, in the end, I am not quite sure you are going to leave there and feel a Master.
All things considered though, you want school. You need structure. You want out of the States. ECA is the best chance you have for that right now. You just might not really consider it a life changing experience when finished, which is sort of sad.