[Jewelry making - Article 00471] - Re: [Orchid] BFA/MFA Vs technical training

[Joel Schwalb]

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    I have been reading the various posts on this subject and decided to
    enter the fray. I think that it is all about your intention. Do you
    want to be a technician only or do you want to have the training to
    be a designer and also have the technical ability and understanding
    of how things work? My background is in the arts with both a BFA and
    MFA. During the six years of undergraduate and graduate work I got a
    solid background in design and in my MFA program focused primarily in
    furniture and exhibition design with a minor in metals under Richard
    Thomas at Cranbrook. It was seven years later that I started to make
    jewelry. From that point on I have been primarily self-taught. It
    certainly would have been easier to have gone on to a school like the
    Revere Academy and learned the technical skills that I didn't learn
    having a minor in metals as part of a MFA program. Life didn't work
    out that way. I would suggest to the person who began this thread,
    decide where you want to go; if your ambition is to be a technician
    find a good trade school and enroll. If you want be a designer as
    well as have the technical skills, do both. I do agree with Elaine in
    that you might even be better off starting with a technical school.
    If you do this first you will have a big advantage when you enter any
    BFA and/or MFA programs. Unlike your fellow students, you will start
    out with the ability to produce your designs and truly focus on the
    designing side of it while your fellow students will be spending a
    lot of time figuring out how to do it. I do not agree with Elaine
    that "BFA's are a waste of time", especially if you intend to go on
    to an MFA. To enter many MFA programs there are many pre-requisite
    core courses that would be covered in a BFA program.

Joel Schwalb
www.schwalbstudio.com
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