Art school courtesy.

Somehow, I feel that a lot of profs at the art school aren’t very kind, esp. those who teach critical theory and some studio arts.

My hunch is that they’re nervous and feel like frauds, and take it out by lording it over students.

During the week devoted to criticism of the final projects of masters students, I had to participate in faculty panels giving feedback, and I noticed that some profs just ripped students up, esp. if they were foreign-born from Asia and their English wasn’t the best.

With one student who the panel head felt didn’t know enough relevant artists, he ended up saying that his art was self-absorbed, and he could go so far being a personality, but there were ultimately limits to that. 

Luckily this one photographer guy and me both liked the student's video, and said so.

“I think it will age well,” I said, and I mentioned a similar film that recently played at a film venue, and I said I could see them paired together at a screening decades down the line, to give us windows into everyday life at the time that they were filmed.

With another (Asian) student, whose work was very symbolic about a painful personal history, and many of whose elaborate symbols were incredibly opaque, I took time afterwards to compliment her on several that I found esp. well done, and it turned out that my favorite symbol was hers too.

It meant so much to both those students just to get a compliment on their work, in addition to my constructive criticism. 

I really do think a lot of profs forget that a lot of these people are so young, in their early 20s!  People easily forget what that age is like, and how young you are then.

On another note, on that same day, when I was by a bank of elevators after lunch and one had opened, I called down to a group of people at the other end of the bank, to let them know that a downward elevator had arrived if they wanted to get on.

“Thanks,” one (heavy) (white) (pierced) (leather-wearing) (female) art student said.  “You know, in all my years here, I’ve never had someone ask that.”