"YOU NEED TO GO BACK TO GRAD SCHOOL" – Said to Drew Barrymore by Crazy mom #2 in Donnie Darko

I got hugely carried away with this for which I apoligize. So much that I exausted myself and it's very much still a draft. but this is a blog only 2 people max will look at, so i'll publish it. 

TOP TEN GRAD SCHOOLS TAYLOR WOULD LIKE TO GO LEARN HOW TO MAKE BETTER PICTURES/WORDS AT 

The paragraphs before the list are not super important, and my feelings won't be hurt if you skim it. You might think i'm less neurotic if you skip it, which will probably end up working in my favor. Do whatever you gotta do though, because it's out there beyond a point where i can stop you once I hit "publish". 

The motivation behind the effort that went into all of this is the fact that I couldn't remember Robert Rauchenburg's name last night, which is a sign i'm getting dumber, all alone in this vaccum i've only been in for 3 years now. 

ALREADY GONE TOO FAR DOWN THIS ROAD. CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP. READ MY LIST PLZ Y'ALL. 

On a more serious note, this list is somewhat legit, I like to think. I've spent a good deal of time in wish-fulfillment-fantasy mode researching these things and finally feel like I not only have the opportuinity to serious pursue grad school, but may lose the luxury of living indoors/eating food if I don't do it now. Which I would greatly prefer to waiting around for an arts administration job to pop up, in a city that need at least 200 or so more of people willing to live a live of being underpaid and working too hard, and other things that are generally a huge bummer when they become the linch pin of your entire livliehood. 

I am aware I will not get instantly rich if/when i receive my next piece of paper 

the entire system our world is governed by wants to tell me is useless. This does not even bum me out, because I'm not even going for professional reasons when it all boils down to what is just me. DFW has a lot to say about this lens of self and being completely, totally, awfully, and offputtingly self centered. And leverages this sentiment into an even greater one that condenses the human condition into the more beatiful way i've heard it be articulated by anyone, ever.

It's really simple. We humans are hardwired to be self centered by what goes down to the neurological structure that is the physical makeup of what we experience and understand to be "consciousness" Therefore being a member of the human species can never be completely severed from being inately self centered. 

Though we might have more fun if we gave into this, did something with our lives that translates more directly into a successful and productive life as defined in Globally Capitalist terms, for those uf us plagued by the urge to think about...things...as a general or inate part of how we develop and experience reality in not just abstract, inaccessible discussions of shit like capital R reality and capital M Mondernism and whatever we've come to agree upon that describes whatever the hell is going on at the moment

I came here to write a list, and feel somewhat redy to actually follow through with that now, so here we go. Because as much as I would like to put a degree from freeartschool.blogspot.com on my resume one day, we will need real degrees before the US News and World Report will say we are worth paying for. I negated my own point there on purpose because that is the only way I think I'll be able to get myself to stop typing this part and get on to the list.  

credentials: literate, has the internet, knows how to abuse free time, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in Everything Studies from webmd.com.

1.UC San Diego

This is the only program I'm going to do this sort of in-depth shit about. So stop being a bitch and just bear with me for a minute, dear reader. Kidding, you know I love you. 

This one is at the top by a long shot for me at the moment. Mainly because it places emphasis on research more-so than traditional components of "studio practice", which would actually make me feel like I had a disciplined studio practice for the first time since setting foot into an art academy. 

This means you don't have someone who comes and checks how many paintings you've made every day if you're a person who only produces something "finished" looking once every few months. I'm talking about myself mainly, but I feel like Roy does this to a lesser, but still there extent. Derrick would like it here too I think, but could and will easily thrive anywhere. Me, not so much. Opie has proven more than I through his dedication to never coming back from Korea, so this probably just me we're talking to here. But I'm gonna try real hard to make you guys feel as strongly as I do about it. Cause I think we could totally tear ass in San Diego as a trio. And I really don't want to move 3000 miles away from everyone I know about the word right now. It would be fun, guys,  just trust me. 

My main reason for being so into UCSD is the fact they give zero fucks about the tradional things that usually "structure" how professional practice as a visual artist is supposed to want. You can figuratively, almost literally do whatever the shit you want here, as long as it's approved by your super intimidating committee of highly accomplished academic bros and ladies. 

Another takeway point for me that I won't go into as much detail just yet, or at least here, mainly for the sake of keeping this thing shorter than my SOP ended up being is this: I would feel like like a huge fake person critiquing all-things-bourgeois in the land of all things inaccessible to most people that happens within the walls of a high-priced academic institution.  

• They are currently the only place that offers a PhD geared towards visual arts practice that seems legit, by any means whatsoever. They are actually the only school I know of with one, but I'm no expert yet. 
• The advantage here is we could spend more than two years figuring out what we are doing with this shit we're are undoubtably going to spend even more of a fuckton of someone's money on. Granted we are spending more money we don't have, but here/what I'm getting at is there is a guarantee other schools can't quite match. Because when you are a Dr. of Visual Shit (i'm pretty sure you get some sort of say about how what you become a doctor of is worded, which is appealing, so I call Dr. of Visual Shit first. Let it be known) 
• They put something I've never been able to quite say eloquently into beautiful words on their website, by said UCSD doesn't enfore the "arbitrary time frames" a traditional arts education would. Which summarizes every problem with visual arts education i've spent every year since 2005 banging my head against a wall...into what they have boiled down to a very concise 3 words. Basically, your due dates, the amount of time you spend on your projects, and the final form your thesis eventually take have no predefined parameters, except for that your advisors have to not think it's total bullshit I suppose. I thought programs that don't use traditional grading scales we're dreamy. But the Pass or Fail system seems like child's play in comparison to this place.
• If you're into making art with supercomputers, they have pretty much the only lab full of them of it's size that's devoted mostly to art-making. Wait because it gets hotter because of the next bulleted point. 
• Collbaoration isn't really encouraged, but seems more like a requirement. Not that I would expect them to place parameters on what collaboration actually means/how it is supposed to occur, because they are blatantly not into that kind of thing. It's not just with other artists, too! Scientists and Mathemeticians and all of these great individuals society usually keeps away from us actually seek out visual artists and work with them to realize whatever they are researching, which would make what we are doing seem so muc more important, I'm convinced. 
• I say this because they describe what is essentially the backbone of their ideology is that "all artistic projects are viewed as being serious intellectual endeavors"

Canfield sold San Diego to me as a city worth ending up in, if we want to get comfortable and whatnot, by pointing out a remarkably simple thing I'd never really thought about. And that is that more shit goes down in "border towns" than anywhere else. and San Diego is a short drive away from 

So I'll wrap up rambling about this place by saying we could live in a place even more socially charged than Memphis (or at least it's socially charged by something a little bit different) but instead of getting overwhelmed and going into some lame, dark ass abyss of depression, we could just go to the becah. Because it's right there. Derrick can keep riding his bike and showing us up at being physically fit and generally more disciplined and well adjusted, while Opie and I take up surfing and catch up to him in the department of non-abject-laziness.

Go look at the faculty too. They seem super legit. I'll sell them by saying Norman Bryson and Lev Manovich are there, who are basically pioneers in some generation-defining theoretical shit. Or at least Manovich wrote the bible of what we call "New Media," but there are a lot of dope people who write about new ways to make painting and drawing relevant that 

More Practical "Pros" on my all-pros-no-cons list i've spent way too much time on by this point:

• They are less selective than places like Yale and Columbia, specifically in the area of past academic performance. I'm convinced it will take a lot of solid convincing to do that, but i've put this much time into convincing you guys of it by this point that I'm less intimidated by doing this than I was an hour or so ago. 
• As long as you can justify a mediocre GPA with seamlessly beautiful logic articulated in 3 pages or less,  a good-lookin'/though-tprovoking portfolio/ and a resume with something like 3 years of teaching in Korea, or something more watered down like curating an art show for a big shot hospital, your application won't be used as lining for a cage a small animal is kept in, like it probably would be at Yale. 
• They seem a lot nicer and smarter than pretty much anyone else. And nice weather would mean higher seratonin levels and generally lower levels of self loathing, which has become my hardwired understand of the months between October and Feburary as. 
• Convincing them you are capable of being taught to someday move object using only your brain isn't the only way to get in, according to some people I talked to on thegradcafe.com. You can also just be a supremely legit artist in a more traditional way, like Derrick for example. Who can already bend spoons with his mind so he is still way more ahead in this game.

If you don't feel like reading all of the above, here's the quick version:

visarts.ucsd.edu | super selective (no numbers to give quantitative proof for that yet, but i'm waiting on an email response from some admissions person. Let's assume 1 billion apply and about 100 people get in, just to keep things motivationally dramatic and generally unrealistic (that's the tone of everything above, for context) | highly interdisciplinary, encourages collaboration (not just w/ artists), emphasizes research as more important component of art practice than...most places.

Basically if you guys don't humor me by sending them an application this friendship is totally over. I like to think I don't ask very much, but this is pretty much a the sternest demand I've ever given anyone. Let's go dudes.   

2. Bard College

Sexy in similar ways to UCSD that are...well, totally different. 

All good stuff:

1. It's a summer program – meaning you are only on campus June–August, and spend the rest of the year doing independent studies. 
2. 90 miles north, or a short train ride from NYC. Most of the faculty live in NYC and commute. 
3. The faculty constantly rotates annually, and always consists of new and already established art badasses. (arists, curators, historians, poets, critics, fish, birds, whoever is most relevant at thie time basically)
4. I've heard people describe it as being a lighter/way more fun version of Yale.

Stuff that seems good/maybe bad simultaneously:

1. Bard has a somewhat scandalous reputation for the place to go if you are okay with being piegonholed as an elitist of all things Left of conservative. This seems to be because they know how to party while maintaing academic badassness.  Like a smaller version of NYU, only in the woods by itself and because of this more dangerous. I came across some blog of little didactic, parable-ish stories about how conservative people take long detours around Annesdale-onHudson out of sheer fear they might be infected with the Liberal cooties plague. Basically I think it might be the only option if we ever want anyone to think we are tough guys in any way/shape/form. 
2. This leads me to think a degree from here is likely to increase your chances of getting laid, which I am not above pursuing for perhaps this reason alone. 
3. It seems to either attract or turn everyone into hyper-hipsters, who probably end up being made icons people in Williamsburg have posters of in expensive apartments. There ar pleanty of ways to take advantage of this, but I should keep this list somewhat on track. Expect another post on this topic in the not-so-distant future. 

3. NYU ITP program

UCSD lite, basically, mainly through it's emphasis on finding new/creative/innovative ways to use developing technologies. They are not art-specific, which is attractive in it's ways. Basically they centrazile around finding new/innovative/more creative applications of more "cutting edge" technology, open to anyone who has something contributing to that. Sounds fun to me, but takes a pretty strong devotion to a very specific interest. You should check it out, but I won't be mad if you're not as into it as I am.

itp.nyu.edu

4. University of Washington Seattle

A solid, more traditon MFA Canfield reccomended because of it's strong liberal arts faculty. Which is enough for me, as much shit as I've talked prior to this. Seattle seems cool, too.

5. NYU MFA

Cause, yeah...It;s NYU & shit. 

art.nyu.edu is my guess for url. google will correct me if im wrong. 

6. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Because Minneapolis is supposedly the shit, and the University supposedly has a way stronger faculty than the more expensive private-school most people study art at there. Another Canfield recommendation.

7. University of Chicago

This is the one Canfield says we all have a guaranteed in at, through his BFF that happens to edit the most influential journal of critical writing ever, according to JSTOR. WJT Mitchell. He's a badass writer/academic, but much less charismatic than the guy who will be recommending us.

Plus it's in Chicago. There's also that.  

uchicago.edu

8. Cranbrook Academy of Art 

Everything I like about this school is also a little bit of a turn off. But it's supposedly the best of the best as far as private schools go,  in terms of the whole school and not program-specific stuff (ie: SVA for Illustration),  I've concluded it's best for people who are okay with paying out the proverbial ass for and elitistly fancy MFA, but don't like RISD or SAIC (me).

Pros:

• Less selective but seemingly as awesome as everything above, if you're willing to pay for it. There are scholarships, but they're MCA stingy with them. 
• Charles and Ray Eames designed the Eames chair in their first year there. Probably the coolest detail of any I could list.
• Outside of Detroit (socially charged blah blah), but happens to be in one of the top 5 wealtiest suburbs in the country. Basically the mecca for self-loating bourgeois people who are becoming even more bourgeois at the same time. despite how iffy this sounds, the work that comes out of here looks better than any other school i've looked at, so they're doing something right there. 
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