Notes on picking up where I left off. Aka 'Why choose to do a degree here'.
I hope to achieve two things with this blog. Firstly I want to document my progression through the last year of my Fine Art & Contemporary Cultures BA Hons degree with the hope that diarising my experience will feed into other writing and understanding of what I'm trying to achieve with my work.
Secondly, I want to document my study at Warwickshire College, Leamington Spa campus to give people thinking about becoming a student here a clearer idea about what it's like.
My connection with the Fine Art & Contemporary Cultures course began in 2007 when I did the first 2 years (level 4 & 5) full time to achieve a diploma. I regretted not studying my passion straight out of school, instead I let myself to be talked into what my family considered to be a more employable option. When I was given the opportunity to fulfil my dream of studying art at this level I leapt at the chance. I fully participated in and enjoyed my two years at Leamington College.
Back then the dipHE course at Leamington was affiliated with Birmingham Institute of Art & Design at St Margaret's School of Art, where one more year's study would have given me my degree. I found the transition to the institute very difficult. I found the travel too much, the tutorial times too inflexible to mix with work, I failed to 'gel' with my tutor. I missed my old studio space and the tutors at Leamington, and moreover I couldn't find myself at home in the dark, untouchable spaces within Margaret St. I was making architectural intervention with electrical tape at the time and found myself at odds with the institution's need to preserve the fabric of the building. So I gave it 4 months, tried out a few things but didn't learn much, then dropped out with relief. So when I found out from another artist that Leamington was now able to offer a final degree year I jumped at the opportunity.
There is a question over choosing to study Higher Education at a college because they sit at the bottom of the educational hierarchy. However, as a former student here, and one who has experienced studying at a much larger university (3 yrs at Wolverhampton University straight after 6th form studying History of Art, English and Media & Communications) I can say that there are some clear advantages, and disadvantages.
I've already mentioned some of the reasons I failed to find study satisfactory at a larger, metropolitan college; time to travel, lack of dedicated studio space, inflexibility of tutorials because the sheer number of students a tutor has to get through makes it impossible to get through everyone. I think Leamington has a max. 30 students over all three year groups, including part-time students. At a larger art colleges only final year undergraduates generally get much of a tutor's time, but such small numbers give greater access to the tutor expertise, and they are all working artists. Visiting artists also have time to get round most students. Alongside division of available studio space into larger portions per undergraduate, greater apportioning of tuition is, I believe, a great advantage.
Definitely there are advantages to a larger course, and I believe that some miss the stimulus of other students around them, and although I don't particularly now, I am sure I would have if I was younger. Here I was glad to see that there was a good mix of students ages. In 2007 it was roughly half and half (I was in the older half at 35), and all the younger ones had left early for a variety of reasons which changed the dynamic of the course.
However, having a famous art college on your CV is undeniably helpful. The need to stand out of the throng is greater on large courses and probably drives ambition. You can get swept along with outstanding groups of developing artists, and there is more likelihood of influential persons and collectors turning up the the your end-of-term show simply because they get to see more in one place.
Despite the comparative obscurity of colleges such successes happen here too, particularly when a student takes marketing themselves into their own hands and reaches out further than the confines of their course. What has become clearer to me is that an art career is what you make it whatever background you happen to have.
My next blog will be more about my art over the first few weeks of the course. With photos, hopefully.
Links.
Warwickshire college, Royal Leamington Spa College website
https://www.wcg.ac.uk/page/93/royal-leamington-spa-college
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