A friend of mine once told me of a spat she had with a close friend who had mocked her need to work hard and study seriously as a music student. Although he had meant it in a joking manner, my friend was indignant about his attitude and how the comment is a reflection of a common misconception
towards the arts.
As a Chinese-Canadian in a research-driven university such as Queen’s, I can hardly blame the confusion and disbelief of people when they find out that I study fine arts. While the first question is usually whether or not my parents are OK with my choice, the point here isn’t concerning the Asian stereotype.
The next most popular questions are the following: “So … what … what is it that you do?!” or “So … you paint … whatever you want?” I want to vindicate the study of fine arts, and shed some light
on what we actually do. Although the term “fine arts” can usually entail anything from music, dance and drama to the visual arts, digital media and film, at Queen’s, it’s focused on the visual art spectrum. That said, the BFA program is composed of four studio streams: painting, sculpture, printmaking and time-based media (i.e., video work mainly), all of which fine arts students are required to take in their first and second year.
However, what most people don’t know about our program is the amount of work and stamina it actually requires. Paintings for example—if you think they’re all fun and games, think again. Queen’s BFA students have one of the highest critical studies to studio class ratios in Canada. So besides
our mandatory studio class of 12 hours per week (Monday to Thursday, three hours each day), don’t forget the load of art history, or the additional twelve hours per week of individual studio work, or the woodshop hours to make our eight-by-four foot canvas stretchers from scratch. But that’s just a
minimum commitment, minus our electives. To be fair, I generally finish the fall and winter early with few exam-period finals. But , that just means all hell breaks loose at the close of classes. Take my third-year painting course last term (equivalent to three classes), for example, in which three months’ worth of painting was due on the last day of classes only to be judged for 100 per cent of our final mark (minus class attendance). In some of my peers’ cases, they also had take-home or in-class exams to juggle with at the same time.
Making art is like writing a meaningful personal essay. It means hours of editing, deleting, polishing, and there’s no instruction manual or rigid textbook telling you exactly what to do. It’s the endless choices that drive me nuts.
I guess what I want to say is that it’s not easy studying art. Forget about the misunderstood-artist-angst thing; instead, it’s difficult because fine art students still need to think and analyze critically, which in my opinion is the point of a university education. Or, I can just make things look pretty—but
what’s my reasoning behind that?
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].