Art history became an A-level option at my school the year I started sixth form. This happened because another student and I cajoled and bullied the head of the art department into arranging it with the examination board.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'm not really well educated - other than an art survey course at the High School of Art and Design in New York when I was, like, 15. I don't know the history of art, but I got over intimidation from the art world when I realized that I was allowed to feel whatever I want and like whatever I want.
There were various turning points, but the main one at the beginning was that I was going off to do another degree in the history of art. I would have ended up as some art historian at Sotheby's or something.
I was an art student at the time, like thousands of others.
I remember when I was in art classes, I hated following the assignments. And I would get in trouble for doing something totally different or taking it in a weird direction.
I was in art school once a week from six to 16, which was essential in shaping my artistic sensitivity.
The visual information of art history is going to students seamlessly, without the enormous trouble those of us who are older had when we studied art history many years ago.
No, my degree was history, not the practice of art! I can't draw to save my life you know.
I taught a lot of art history, especially Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. But the painting classes came back. The nudes came back. Not so much the still lifes. So now our department is the worst department, partly because it has the worst facilities.
I went to school at the San Francisco Art Institute, thinking I was going to become an art teacher. Within the first six months I was there, I was told that I couldn't be an art teacher unless I became an artist first.
When I was in sixth grade, they slashed the budgets for all of our school art programs, so my grandparents enrolled me in art classes at Worcester Art Museum, which I attended from sixth to 12th grade.