MFA Programs: The Preamble

David Byrne made art out of Powerpoint. Above is a still from Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information.

Prior to opening my gallery in 2003, most of the people I knew who were contemplating or pursuing graduate degrees were focused on getting MBAs from Harvard or Stanford. I was working in the internet business then, in the belly of the beast: Mountain View, California. I spent most of my time at Netscape with a complex about my lack of a degree, advanced or otherwise - I was the wacky creative type in sea of other Program Managers with freshly minted MBAs and ferocious Powerpoint and Excel skills. I was a stranger in a strange land - an East Coast girl who cared more about poetry than mountain bikes and considered design and editorial not only more interesting, but more important than "presos" and budgets.

Complex aside, I muddled my way through. I never polished my productivity software skills to the burnished glow of my peers', but I did move onward and upward in spite of my deficiencies. In 2000 I came back to NYC to be the Chief Creative Officer (*cough*) of a company that had created proprietary software that allowed people to upload and share their videos. (Yes, like YouTube, but more than half a decade earlier. More than half a decade too early in fact. I prefer not to discuss it.)

You probably remember what happened right around then - the internet bubble, it burst. Suddenly even my plumber was shaking his head with a rueful smile saying "Oh... you're one of those internet people..." Suffice to say that I was out of work for a long time. I tried my hand at going back to school - I took a Modernist poetry course at Hunter, my alma mater. (Great course, fabulous professor, never handed in my papers.) Then I took a poetry writing course at The New School. (Closer to home, good class, but I first I was in love and then I was broken-hearted. My poetry was sentimental, then maudlin. At both stages, it was just bad.) All those MBAs I knew took jobs as brand managers at places like Clorox.

All my creative friends, the writers, the designers, the ones who never quite understood how they ended up at big companies working on vaporous products to begin with, were suddenly contemplating MFA programs. They were not alone. I don't have the stats, and me being who I am, I'm disinclined to look for or interpret them, but anecdotally, I do remember articles in the New York Times about how dotcom refugees were fucking with the curve (maybe they didn't put it that way) by flooding programs with applications, making getting into an MFA program the most competitive it had ever been. In spite of all this some of them got in.

Most notably, my friend Dana Miller got into Bard's MFA program, which to this day I consider one of the more interesting and valuable programs out there. Bard was an odd introduction to MFA programs, especially photography ones - it's interdisciplinary and low-residency. Rather than bunkering down for two years straight on a college campus, candidates spend 8 weeks in the Hudson Valley for three consecutive Summers. More than one person has referred to it as being like camp for grown-ups. (Although these campers were hard at work the entire time - those 8 weeks were invariably intense.) The "Winter Semester", which was actually most of the year, was a time for independent study.

This set up allowed for a more diverse student body - there aren't a lot of people much past the age of say, 25, who are willing or able to set aside two years for school. Dana, and many of her fellow students, were in their late 20s and early 30s. They had some distance from undergrad - they'd been out in the world working at jobs and trying to make art work in their spare time. They understood how hard it was to do, which in my opinion, made them value the opportunity that much more.

The first year that Dana was in the program, I was just an interested, if somewhat befuddled observer. I was a wacky creative type in the Valley, but I'd never really hung with the art school crowd before. I helped Dana move to and from bucolic Tivoli and spent a few weekends up there in between. I wandered from studio to studio while I was there, and I think I attended a crit or two. I admired the creativity of the outfits students wore to their thesis show. It was all pretty foreign, but it was fascinating and fun and people were intensely engaged and smart.

That first Summer I had no clue that I'd end up evaluating this and other MFA programs with a different, much more critical eye. Nor was I aware that I'd be asked for my opinion about these programs as often as I am. I work with tons and tons of emerging artists - Hey, Hot Shot! exposes me to a steady stream of them, and I also tend to over-commit myself to interns. This MFA question comes up a lot, and my answers are distinctly my own, informed by these experiences I just outlined.

Right now, I'm in the last few minutes of the parking shuffle but I'll be back later on today to address the meat of the matter.

Comments

[Gong Szeto]

it is a fact that there were a lot of dotcom refugees thrown into a position of soul-searching after the "easy-money" period of the dotcom boom occurred - like "you know, i really don't know jack about business so i'd better go to school for it." or "you know, the overt commercialism if the world is really bugging me, so i am going to make art, which is really what matters." i think the fall out was a good thing. i think the runup was a bad thing. the net result is that a lot of young, smart people got proactive and tried to deepen the areas that attracted them to entrepreneurialism (or rather, an acute look at themselves and their role in value-creation in this capitalistic world). more knowledge is more power. i, for the record, include making art as entrepreneurial. think about it. it makes sense to think of it that way.

i, too, took a period to soul-search and patch some gaps in my knowledge, and truth-be-told, 6 years later i am still at it. but in the process, i've learned what really truly interests me, and what doesn't. it took a while.

ultimately, it's about creating new value. value for someone, be it a "consumer", "an end-user", "a collector", whatever. art traffics in highly aesthetic realms, and it is a proven and valid commercial pursuit (of course, i am speaking only to those artists who "sell" their work (or aspire to - which is probably 98% of the working artist realm, holier-than-thou attitude notwithstanding). whether or not one's vision translates into financial success is something that is common in both the business and art realms, and that's where a healthy understanding of risk comes in. i think MBA's could benefit from teachings in MFA-land, and vice versa (moreso the latter, IMO).

in terms of career validation, i believe that one should strive like hell to monetize one's interests and talents in whatever way possible. it may not be obvious today, but with perseverance and tenacity, i think "quality" always has value in today's market. i just ask that people not only get good at their respective "games" but also develop critical thinking skills about what's good or bad in their respective fields and really try hard to innovate. innovation takes critical thinking, and the market rewards handsomely the right kinds of innovation.

20x200 is innovative, and probably never could have happened had you not meandered the way you did, so feel really good about where you are now. and fight like hell to get where you want to go because no one will ever do it for you.

as for the post-bust MFA's out there - what is it about what happened in 1997-2001 that makes you think you have something to add to an already burgeoning canon of commentary on society? i know what *i* observed - i just want to know what you did.

[Lane]

Jen, I'm excited to read your input on MFA programs. Since I took a detour to New Zealand, I don't plan to go for another few years yet, but I've already started researching schools and keeping a list of possibilities. I look forward to hearing your take on it.

[Leslie Brown]

There was a really great multi-author "Art School Symposium" "A Group Crit" on these issues and more in the May issue of Art in America. Chock a block with a dozen interesting POVs and highly recommended. It's not online, sadly, but well worth seeking out. - Leslie

[Michelle Kaufman]

Hi there! Where is the conclusion to your MFA commentary? I am a painter and I am thinking about getting one and would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks