There is growing concern regarding the teaching of fine art
in Wales. The recent depredations in higher education and implicit threat to
art education in schools and FE colleges suggests a pressing need to establish
an independent art school that works to counteract the abandoning of a
sophisticated visual language in art. Visual intelligence should be the
principle focus of such an institution. One that helps aspiring artists become
visually alert and able to recognise
A national institution for the teaching of art in Wales must
stand in antithesis to the prevailing culture of existing in art departments
throughout the United Kingdom. One which misguidedly focuses attention away
from the art work as a valid subject for perusal and critique and that would
substitute an art that elevates ideas and personalities without a material
intermediary.
The idea that knowledge leads one to understand does not
really work for artists, unless that knowledge is gathered and processed
through the experience of making. Conceptual thinking is to be understood
through understanding the potential of materials and through apprehending the
object as art.
Skills must be taught, but more through discovery, aptitude
and the desire to realise visual ambitions rather than through technical
prescriptions. Formal values and conventions will be taught as a means of
artists establishing clarity and distinctiveness. A national school should
celebrate the traditions of art. We attest that the most daring art comes from
such traditions.
Drawing will be taught as the principal way of exploring
ideas. It will be taught as something specific. Drawing will be valued as the
bedrock of all visual fine art disciplines.
Critical thinking must encouraged through looking at work,
at things in the studio, at potential art. Debate, discussion must be fostered,
and analysis must not just involve those works present but also examples of art
from both historical and contemporary sources. This framing or
contextualisation is seen as essential in establishing agreed parameters for
quality and particularity. Art history will be an essential component of a
national school.
An environment that will best enable the making of art in
this way is, in our opinion the traditional artist’s studio. We intend to set a
group of studios within a single building coupled with a variety of other
spaces that cater for various teaching and domestic situations. In a good art
school the private and public spaces are well balanced. Public learning
represented by group critiques, life drawing classes and public celebration of
work will need its own ample space whilst individual studios will allow for
private introspection and accommodate semi private discussion one to one.
Collaboration and apprenticeship teaching can take place in staff studios and
studio workshop.
There are a variety of possible patterns for a national art
school in Wales. All have a different number of possibilities as well as
potential problems associated with them. Not least the proposal would necessarily
be examined in what appears to be a particularly hostile climate given the
aforementioned trend towards the decimation of art education in Wales.
To advance such a proposal we must consider specific
information and establish a sound strategy and sustainable business plan.
Experienced and independent advice to proceed regarding company constitution,
whether to seek accreditation and deliver graduate or post graduate
qualification.
Ambition, it has been said, is critical. Anything that
aspires to be national institution must necessarily operate and perform
internationally
