Cheerskep; I should have mentioned one student who did strike me as very singular. Audrey Niffenegger, the author/artist was my MFA student some years ago. I was only one of her several MFA teachers and she was already a respected artist when she began her study at Northwestern. So I can't claim to have had much influence on her development. She was a book artist, combining etchings with her own fiction, making very beautiful books that she printed herself. Now she is widely known as the author of the best seller, The Time-Traveler's Wife, (with millions in print) and she has another book coming out in a month or so. The movie version (she was not directly involved) of that first novel is now playing (and has bad reviews). Audrey has also begun a graphic novel and the drawings for the first chapter have been published in a London newspaper and exhibited in galleries. Right out of the gate, she has mastered the graphic novel genre with incredibly complex and vivid drawings. One is astonished by the intimacy of marks and expression in these drawings even as they match the requirements of a rather blunt medium for newspaper reproduction. When she was a student she had a remarkable presence, a rather stately sort of persona, a blazing wit, and yet stood apart from others, as if she was on a secret mission. One could not be breezy around Audrey because she is super smart and extremely well-informed. So yes, she did exude a sense of being a rare and highly gifted artist from the start. After her MFA years she worked very hard as an artist, teacher, and writer. Her current success is due to that focussed intensity and "no matter what" attitude I think is crucial. Is she "great"? I don't know and she is wise enough to know the pitfalls of any degree of fame. What she does so well is to know precisely what her abilities are and she makes the most of them. Today, when no genre of art is ranked above another, when low, high, popular, elitist, have equal claim to greatness, it's crucial for a young artist to know how his or her abilities and spirit may permit reshaping of a genre. Many art schools today fail to help their students match their gifts to the right slice of the cultural strata. Too many programs simply point everyone to the narrow strip of the art as theory, exemplified by unreadable essays, the international art fair, glossy art press, and the happenstance art star created by the marketing genius of a Gagosian his billionaire collectors. Audrey has proven that one can indeed "start anywhere" as Harold Rosenberg once said, even with little black and white etchings and diaristic stories hand printed on an old letterset press. Needless to say, I admire Audrey and am pleased for her. She is an artist. wc
________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:29:59 PM Subject: The teacher's dream > William writes: > [Given that most art is bad, and most of the bad stuff is terrible, and so very little is any good and almost none is really good, I'm always ready to be impressed by those rare examples of really good. I like a work that BANG, hits you before you begin looking at it seriously. A good piece of art is like a bandit, a mugger, who surprises you before you realize what's going on." > Given that most art is bad, and most of the bad stuff is terrible, and > so very little is any good and almost none is really good, I'm always ready > to be impressed by those rare examples of really good.] > This is not a bait query, William -- I just want to hear a story. During your teaching career did you ever encounter in a new student a raw, astonishing talent of such quality you felt you were were looking at the early work of a future great artist? If so, what happened to that person? (I know you mentioned in the past a student of yours who eventually became an eminent teacher.)
