Studying Art / Fine Art at university

[ArtyMom]

DS17 intends to do an Art Foundation course after his A-levels. That will be in London as we live there. Plenty of choice.

If he decides to go on and do further Art study after that, he's keen to go away (leave London) so at that point we'd be looking at art schools / universities outside of London and the SE. Wants to experience life in another city and as part of a big (varied) university.

I've noticed that some of the locations listed quite high the league tables for Art are post-'92 universities eg Bournemouth, Trinity St David Swansea. Is a degree from a subject-respected post '92 more, or less, prestigious, than one from a traditionally high-performing RG university like Newcastle, Edinburgh or Leeds?

If it helps, I think he'd be looking more in the direction of traditional painting and some academic art history modules, rather than somewhere that is going to encourage him to be wacky and very conceptual (as that's just not him).

Would be grateful for pointers. I don't know anything about the art world; he keeps asking my opinion and I just don't know what to say!!! His school is high performing but churns out mostly medics, lawyers and engineers; they're not so good at advising for Art!

At @ArseInTheCoOpWindow it's annoying isn't it. I had to teach DS3 at home drawing and observation skills and basic painting techniques. His art grade jumped up due to lockdown home ed! His school could only afford basic materials and the curriculum seemed to focus more on showing the evolution of ideas than on finished results. Don't get me wrong, that's good too but it's very time consuming annotating and collating photos, doodles and experiments, doesn't leave a lot of time for skills development.
I was at a Scottish Art School in the eighties, it was quite old school and somehow had more or less ignored the rise of conceptual art and still had an emphasis on traditional skills and was well known for producing good painters. However, while I was there there was a bit of a rebellion and a few students basically rebelled and insisted on doing installations for their final show. Combined with the resident old guard starting to retire and modernising to appeal to international students there is now more of a focus on mixed media work. Frankly, something has been lost. Lot of bland work with very little that has a distinct Scottish flavour. Very little of the degree shows makes a lasting impact but maybe I'm just old and jaded! DS3 still wants to go there!

One of the issues is her teacher (selective private school) has been there forever and has been mumbling about leaving the the past couple years so my daughter says he had mentally checked out. As part of her decay theme she was mainly looking at plants and animals, but to expand started looking at the built environment - we live in London. She then did a layered collage with paper mache bricks (she had no idea how to mix the paste and was amazed when I said just flour and water) and wallpaper - it was different and interesting. His reaction was that it didn't 'flow' with her other work and not to include it. She ignored him as one thing she does have is the courage of her convictions!

Tip for future paper maiche: use pva with one part pva and 2 parts water .

@mondaytosunday and l wouldn’t advise leaving anything out unless the standard is really weak. It doesn’t have to ‘flow’, it’s fine to go off on a tangent.

I left teaching a couple of years ago. I was knackered, but l ws still teaching it properly until the last day. The teacher sounds lazy. I’m amazed it’s not been picked up by ofsted.

@PhotoDad is that a degree course? I’d be interested to know where (DM me if you like)

@McSweeney It's no secret, as I'm active on other "arty DC" threads; DD is at Anglia Ruskin's "Cambridge School of Art" (actually, CSA grew into Anglia Ruskin.) She fell in love with the buildings and the city. It's tiny (20ish students per course per year) so she knows all her lecturers and technicians really well. But I gather than other illustration courses around the country are very similar (although mostly larger). Very much design (working to a client's "brief") rather than fine art (exploring your own ideas).

@mondaytosunday Argh! DD's final A-level project was full of false starts and tangents. (All extensively annotated, much to her annoyance.)

@PhotoDad brilliant, thanks! It sounds amazing - her current course has about 150 students, any seminar that involves the whole year is online. I think it’s just a money-spinner tbh.

@McSweeney I would imagine that the Fine Art course at CSA/ARU also has some structure (glancing at the website, there's a drawing course in Year 1). The USP of the art school as a whole is an old-fashioned obsession with observational drawing, which is very much "marmite" in art education. That and being tiny, in a lovely Victorian/Edwardian building only 15 minutes' walk from the city centre. DD is having the time of her life there, but she's always been the sort who enjoys pottering around looking at architecture and museums/galleries, and there's plenty of that in Cambridge. Plus the Botanic Gardens for her nature fix.

@PhotoDad yes, I got that impression from looking at the website. We did UCAS in a bit of a rush and at the time she was dithering between fine art and photography- we didn’t get a chance to do too much in the way of investigation and I totally missed Anglia. It looks like it would be much more up her street as she loves drawing.

Really interested to find this thread even though it was started a year ago!
My DD sounds similar to OPs son in that she's at a fairly competitive school and they have identified students with very good GCSEs as most suited to Oxbridge or RG unis. However its nearly all geared towards STEM but she's interested in art.
I think at the moment (year 12) she's considering illustration, and doesn't want to do fine art, but had dis-counted CSA. It's within the geographical radius we're looking at though (ones that will be easy for her to get home for a weekend, if she wants to) so I'm going to show her the thread.

@Fizbosshoes There is a fantastic amount of intelligent discussion on this thread too, mainly aimed at current Y13s. I'm also really happy to sing the praises of CSA, and particularly the illustration course, either on threads or by DM (feel free). It isn't for everyone by any means (either the course or the city) so your DD's initial thoughts might be right, but it is proving perfect for my DD.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/4626697-2023-uni-applications-for-those-pursuing-art-and-creative-routes