Art School Quotes

“It's often the most naturally intelligent students who have the most difficult time in their first year -- law school, particularly the first year of law school, is not really a place where creativity, abstract thought, and imagination are rewarded. In this way, I often think -- based on what I've heard, not what I know firsthand -- that it's a bit like art school.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“When I was in art school, we were looking one day at a slide of some great fifteenth century painting, and one of the students asked 'Why don't artists paint like that now?' The room suddenly got quiet. Though rarely asked out loud, this question lurks uncomfortably in the back of every art student's mind. It was as if someone had brought up the topic of lung cancer in a meeting within Philip Morris.

'Well,' the professor replied, 'we're interested in different questions now.' He was a pretty nice guy, but at the time I couldn't help wishing I could send him back to fifteenth century Florence to explain in person to Leonardo & Co. how we had moved beyond their early, limited concept of art. Just imagine that conversation.

In fact, one of the reasons artists in fifteenth century Florence made such great things was that they believed you could make great things. They were intensely competitive and were always trying to outdo one another, like mathematicians or physicists today—maybe like anyone who has ever done anything really well.

The idea that you could make great things was not just a useful illusion. They were actually right. So the most important consequence of realizing there can be good art is that it frees artists to try to make it.”
― Paul Graham

“If you experiment, you have to fail. By definition, experimenting means going to territory where you've never been, where failure is very possible. How can you know you're going to succeed?
Having the courage to face the unknown is so important.”
― Marina Abramović, Walk Through Walls: A Memoir

“The rebellion against fascism is immensely important to society when its grip on our dreamers strangles the creativity out of our ambition, finally snuffing out all progress as we know it, and as if implanting a tombstone, parks institutions in its place.”
― Oliver Oyanadel

“Sketchbooks are fascinating; they are a window into an artist's or designer's mind, revealing their unique way of looking at or thinking about the world. However, the sketchbook has become a much fetishised object featured in countless books, blog's and social-media accounts showcasing stylised and curated examples that few can emulate. It is no wonder that at some point on the Foundation course every student articulates anxiety or frustration over their own sketchbook: it's too big, too small, too messy, too contrived, I can't draw, what's it for?
So why do we work with a sketchbook and what is it really for?”
― Lucy Alexander, The Central Saint Martins Guide to Art & Design: Key lessons from the world-renowned Foundation course

“Artists and designers have a largely shared skill set and knowledge base but the work they create, however indistinguishable in terms of technique, subject matter and visual language, is made for entirely different reasons. Attempts to define or make clear distinctions between art and design are always contestable, but at the beginning of a diagnostic process it is useful to identify a simple delineation between the two:

Art

An artist's practice generally emerges from their own individual concerns explored over varying durations in the studio. The work is then usually presented to a knowing public either in galleries or in designated public spaces.

Design

Design is largely initiated externally from the needs or desires of a client or external body. The functionality of the designed solution is as important as its desirability, craft and aesthetics.
Design is in the public domain and, as such, its messages, meanings and functions are inextricably linked to the political, social and economic concerns of its audience/ user and its context.”
― Lucy Alexander, The Central Saint Martins Guide to Art & Design: Key lessons from the word-renowned Foundation course

“The mule took out two small jars, one of a white gooey texture and another of a blueish red liquid that wasn’t purple because the mule had skipped art class when he was younger”
― J.S. Mason, The Satyrist...And Other Scintillating Treats

“No work exists in a vacuum: everything you make and do as an artist or designer sits within the history of art and design and the wider world at the time that you make it. Without deeply knowing what surrounds our own creative output, we cannot assert its place in the world. Therefore, developing an in-depth research process is central to evolving a robust and informed art and design practice.”
― lucy alexander, The Central Saint Martins Guide to Art & Design: Key lessons from the world-renowned Foundation course

“Lazy looking is not really looking at all. It is when we guess or approximate things. When you really interrogate what you are looking at and challenge yourself to use and invent a wide range of approaches to capturing what you see, your drawing's will start to reflect your unique way of looking.”
― Lucy Alexander, The Central Saint Martins Guide to Art & Design: Key lessons from the world-renowned Foundation course