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Thursday, May 3, 2018

MUSINGS ON SUBJECTIVE ACADEMIA, IN MY CASE ART SCHOOL



 Four examples of my fine art and photojournalism completed while I attended UCLA: Rod Stewart in Faces,1972; my 6' x6' painting that was stolen right after this documentation; Alice Cooper at the beginning of their career; my copy of Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Sonja Knipps, assigned to teach students how to utilize undercoats, as currently displayed in our home.



Last night my friend Lisa Davidson inspired me to muse on subjective academia experiences. Actually, in the late '60s/early 70s the art instruction at UCLA's Dept. of Fine Art was pretty cool, with the gamut from learning hardcore systems like 3 point perspective to no less than Ed Ruscha telling us to paint whatever we wanted or no less than R.B. Kitaj requiring us to make a line drawing from a nude model for all 6 weeks of the class*, asking us to "make it perfect. Erasure is allowed." 

In contrast, I've been told the current emphasis is on "cultural development" and "contemporary issues" rather than honing one's art to the best of one's abilities to present it to anyone and everyone. Also, my very first week at UCLA I figured out that A) if 19 out of 20 professors concurred, that was probably close to the truth and B) out of any given class of 20 art students, only 5 had any art expertise, 1 was probably a future success as visuals genius, and 15 were there to goof or were bereft of any real visual talent. I always endeavored to be at least one of those 5... 

My most important accomplishment at UCLA was meeting the writers and journalists of its newpaper entertainment sections. We dealt with our company town's actual record companies and studios, which forged the directions of my life's work in photography, art direction, writing and photojournalism. Life lessons indeed... 


 * "It's all true. I stood next to you in Kitaj's class." - Phil Savenick

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