Archie Rand - Part 6 Art Education

Rand “We touched upon a few techniques this semester. Realize we could have spent a whole semester on each one (ie rembrandt would spend 95 hours cross hatching his etchings)”.

Talent is desire and courage — everything else can be learned.

Overachievers are wacky. They aren’t normal, they can never do anything right.

By 2 years old, all kids have the same visual language, the face of geometric shapes. By seven, they all draw the house with the chimney, the stylized birds, the sun with rays, etc… the whole mode of drawing is symbolic. Then when they are 8 they are discouraged and told that visual language is all about realism.

Here’s a teacher’s secret. Friendship with students erodes authority.

Father teaching Archie how to drive: “your grandmother who’s 90 years old and wears coke bottles for glasses drives. Archie don’t be a jerk, your grandmother even knows how to drive! It’s just like drawing, don’t be a jerk.”

The way I teach this class is like jazz. You learn how to play the instrument yourself and can improvise according to your style.

During the Vietnam war, any rational professor inflated his marks. Those students with C averages were eligible for the draft and hence war. But the academic integrity never recovered after the war. The grades still remain inflated and are a crock of shit. Grades are antithetical to art. How can anyone make objective grades for a subjective subject? After 2 years of Columbia, the dean threatened to fire Archie for giving out the highest grades ever in the history of the university. 

Columbia students have been trained in the hierarchical mindset. They have excelled at going to classes and spitting back information for their professors. That’s not what art is all about. 

A good teacher makes his subjects come to life.

At 21, I was going to help a famous painter teach his class. At the last minute, he told me to take charge of the class. On the first day, I lost ½ the people. Then I realized I could keep the attention of my class by fixing paintings. For 5 years, I fixed paintings, until 1 day a woman drawing a nude on a quilt asked me how to paint the nude. I took her out of the class and told her “feel the woman’s weight on the bed, feel the quilt, imagine the quilt on your face, breathe the quilt.” Fine. She was an A student, and she said I’ll draw the quilt. We we returned to the class, sure enough, she turned out an excellent painting, and I realized my advice was totally irrational.