As someone with an MFA I can only speak from personal experience: the art degree world is, in fact, bullshit. Valuable to the extent anyone engaging with it seems it valuable. But aside from that it’s a lifelong loan, a few lifelong friends, and a life of remembering to create for the same reason your daughter wrote that beautiful poem: to remember to keep existing.
Thanks, Samuel. Did you do your MFA in the States? The French situation as you now is complicated and getting more so with the rise of private art schools and the pressure being put on the public ones by the new minister of Culture, which looks to be a first crack at "rationalising" higher education in France in general. A suivre !
I did a low residency program in the USA, Vermont College of Fine Arts, which I don't regret it insofar as it provided the community I was looking for and debt is a fluid concept more than a material reality so long as there are ways around having to pay it back (here's to qualifying for below the poverty line in the US but middle class in France!)
Yes I agree, and honestly I think maybe inexpensive to a fault. As a vacataire (adjunct for our non Francophiles) who got paid--and I quote my tax statement here--839 EUROS TOTAL FOR A SEMESTER OF TEACHING (12 weeks), it seems to me that at some point, if education is to be valued in a capitalistic system, then those supposedly benefitting from said system also need to place a monetary value on it. What that value is is certainly orders of magnitude too high in the USA, but I also think far too low for a sustainable system in France.
Oh lord. So very and tragically true. I'd be in the gutter if I were attempting to be a creative in the USA, but I wouldn't be looking at the stars, like Oscar Wilde said. At best, I'd be writing about how I was perpetually face down in the muck. Vive la France, quand même!
As someone with an MFA I can only speak from personal experience: the art degree world is, in fact, bullshit. Valuable to the extent anyone engaging with it seems it valuable. But aside from that it’s a lifelong loan, a few lifelong friends, and a life of remembering to create for the same reason your daughter wrote that beautiful poem: to remember to keep existing.
Thanks, Samuel. Did you do your MFA in the States? The French situation as you now is complicated and getting more so with the rise of private art schools and the pressure being put on the public ones by the new minister of Culture, which looks to be a first crack at "rationalising" higher education in France in general. A suivre !
I did a low residency program in the USA, Vermont College of Fine Arts, which I don't regret it insofar as it provided the community I was looking for and debt is a fluid concept more than a material reality so long as there are ways around having to pay it back (here's to qualifying for below the poverty line in the US but middle class in France!)
At least (financial) debt doesn’t enter the equation in France. Public diploma programs are absurdly inexpensive…
Yes I agree, and honestly I think maybe inexpensive to a fault. As a vacataire (adjunct for our non Francophiles) who got paid--and I quote my tax statement here--839 EUROS TOTAL FOR A SEMESTER OF TEACHING (12 weeks), it seems to me that at some point, if education is to be valued in a capitalistic system, then those supposedly benefitting from said system also need to place a monetary value on it. What that value is is certainly orders of magnitude too high in the USA, but I also think far too low for a sustainable system in France.
Yup--though the US schools are just as exploitive of adjuncts etc. More so if you factor in healthcare and whatnot.
Oh lord. So very and tragically true. I'd be in the gutter if I were attempting to be a creative in the USA, but I wouldn't be looking at the stars, like Oscar Wilde said. At best, I'd be writing about how I was perpetually face down in the muck. Vive la France, quand même!
The whole pack of your are geniuses. I love her poem. Did she write that in Bam Bam?
Nope, in the kitchen on Condorcet...
So impressive.
Frustrating éléments to your story, but with lots of beauté.
Merci, Barbara-jo !