Exerpts from undergraduate welcome speech

 

Your family says: 'You are an amazing artist. Study art. We support you.'

Your friends say: 'You must be crazy doing an art degree but hey go for it.'

You say: 'I'm going to be a famous artist or I'll starve but I have to do it.'

 

An acceptable senario is to leave here after graduation and get two or three low paying jobs so that you can scrape together enough money to afford a crummy studio while living in a crumy multi roommate apartment. You would actually work on your art late at night if you weren't so exhausted from working at all your jobs. If you're lucky you will get a job teaching art to children. Teaching children isn't really your thing but that is the life of an artist after all.

 

I say: " Your inspiration is my inspiration and to that end the ... School of Visual Arts has not only joined the twenty second century, we plan to surpass it.

 

Your goal is to do your best work during your time here and my goal is to support your time here and perhaps more importantly help prepare you for what comes next. I'm guessing that every generation believes that the world has changed drastically from when they were kids. The fact is that technology is placing us in  a new stratosphere. Art and technology, art and innovation, art and social change have arrived and are the vanguard of the future.

 

...while you are sculpting sketching and designing, think about your passions and create a radius of possibilities. As you walk through these doors, leave your stereotypes of artisits behind you and open a new folder in your minds and on your laptops entitled 'thoughts ideas and dreams...