Visual Art Apr 26, 2007 at 4:00 am

Founded to teach what artists don't learn in art school-old-fashioned skills-Gage Academy's classical atelier attracts students from around the world. But Gage Academy's founders see the need to modernize. Welcome to the art school dilemma.

Students in the Aristides Atelier at Gage Academy work from a model three hours a day. Jennifer Richard

Comments

1
Jen, you write with honesty and authority on a subject that is dear to my heart. As you say, the educational model of university art instruction imploded upon itself in the 70s. At that time, the head of the art college at Arizona State University left his post and started a Renaissance style atalier on the rural property of a great art patron named Louise Kerr, heir to the John C Lincoln fortune. With a board of directors made up of the most influential members of the "Phoenix Forty" he started the Waddell Sculpture Fellowship.

Under the umbrella organization of Master Apprentice Programs (formed to encourage similar fellowships in music, dance and painting) John Waddell built a magnificent sculpture studio, bronze foundry, and apprentice studio. Over a period of fifteen years, he hosted nearly 25 full time apprentices. I spent four years of study with Waddell. His story is the subject of a recent documentary called "Rising, The Art and Life of John Waddell". I urge you to see it, and to visit his new website. John is now 94, still working, and an exemplar of the resurgent figural movement.

Clarke Riedy
Sculptor
2
Jen, you write with honesty and authority on a subject that is dear to my heart. As you say, the educational model of university art instruction imploded upon itself in the 70s. At that time, the head of the art college at Arizona State University left his post and started a Renaissance style atalier on the rural property of a great art patron named Louise Kerr, heir to the John C Lincoln fortune. With a board of directors made up of the most influential members of the "Phoenix Forty" he started the Waddell Sculpture Fellowship.

Under the umbrella organization of Master Apprentice Programs (formed to encourage similar fellowships in music, dance and painting) John Waddell built a magnificent sculpture studio, bronze foundry, and apprentice studio. Over a period of fifteen years, he hosted nearly 25 full time apprentices. I spent four years of study with Waddell. His story is the subject of a recent documentary called "Rising, The Art and Life of John Waddell". I urge you to see it, and to visit his new website. John is now 94, still working, and an exemplar of the resurgent figural movement.

Clarke Riedy
Sculptor
3
This was actually fairly poorly written, lacked any flow, and was filled with lots of falsehoods. Please do better research into your writings.

Also, what's up with the consistent references to Hitler? "Remember when Ives Gammell, the ARC, and Hitler all hated modernism and rounded up 6 million Jews on trains and systematically killed them?" Yeah, I remember that.
4
Is there a distinction, in teaching science, between teaching the technical aspects of scientific method and teaching the philosophy of science, or the history of science. Of course there is. The arts should recognize the same distinctions. These false dichotomies of teaching method and materials vs. teaching expression are tiresome and unproductive.
5
Yes, the Hitler references are gratuitous, despite what Gary Faigin suggests. Gary didn't know Gammell, nor did he have any significant contact with Gammell's students. I did. One could also say that Hitler enjoyed heterosexual exploits with Eva Braun. Does that make sex suspect? Did Hitler eat carrots, or pick his nose? Are all nose-pickers Nazi's? One should not have to encounter such obvious logical fallacies in the writings of someone who GETS PAID FOR THEIR WORK!
6
It should be noted that Winston Churchill was also a figurative artist working in a traditional mode.
7
'old fashioned skill' what rubbish jen, drawing and painting are languages, if you actually drew or painted, or knew someone really well that did, you would know that.

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