Creating personally meaningful work can be an elusive thing. Many students fall into the trap of either imitating their favorite artists, teachers or mentors, or relying too much on technique training. But developing a personal creative voice means moving beyond the crutches of mimicry and technique, and instead focusing on developing a personal point-of-view, style or aesthetic, and concept basis.
To help Studio School students understand and achieve this, we provide opportunities to try techniques as one would a buffet. In their foundational Freshman and Sophomore years students examine contemporary inspriations, concepts and practices while building strong skills in a wide variety of expressive media including observational drawing, painting, 3D design, ceramics, engineering concepts, graphic design, film, animation and photography. If something is intriguing, we encourage students to keep with it and build off of it. Otherwise we help students reflect on their learning before moving on to try other things.
In other words, rather than requiring students to declare only one focus that drives all their studies for four years, we promote working with a patchwork of many influences, and mixing techniques, interests, concepts, media and disciplines in order to discover strengths and weaknesses. Then, in their Junior year, students are ready to expand their interests and identify focus areas that will help them complete a body of creative work in the same theme throughout their Senior year.