I don't get the elitism of art sometimes.
I was looking at the UM Ann Arbor webpage, and was reading their strict portfolio requirements to get accepted into the program. That to me is just baffling. It seems that everyone wants to assess you, define some criteria to decide if you're "worthy" of getting into debt to study art at their institution.
That's just wrong on so many levels.
I've said before how that just advantages students with a lot of art training as they were growing up. Because drawing is really 90% technique and repetition.
And I've said before about how that is just senseless ego feeding.
But I'm going to take this a step further.
That is everything that is wrong with art today.
Yes, it's true that we as a culture don't appreciate art. We consider it silly, fluff, impractical. We want it around as long as it's landscapes in the background but we don't want to be challenged by it. We also, as a society, sneer at the concept of art, considering it mostly pretension and not part of the "real world".
I believe the elitism of art is a big part of this.
By covering it in a mystique, by insisting it's an innate talent (and I will remind you that most people who claim this have taken art classes for years. If it's so damned innate then why do they need to take classes?) it creates a rift between the artists and the "common people". We condescendingly call the untrained and emotional artist "outsider art", treating them as heathens who don't know what they possess.
By putting objective standards on something so intensely personal and subjective we not only deter those who would otherwise have an interest in exploring art, but we deter those who are truly innovative in their art. If Van Gogh were alive today, he wouldn't be able to get into art school! It not only is ludicrous but it creates an environment where one is more interested in jumping through hoops at the instruction of their teachers than in really creating and pushing boundaries.
This cloud of elitism prevents people from discovering how much art can enrich their life and sometimes heal their life. Because of this, society as a whole doesn't recognize the value of art. This keeps fine art in the realm of frivolity, where it exists for those who can afford it and becomes a training ground for future teachers, who will perpetuate the myth of artistic elitism.
There is no outsider art. There is no innate ability. There is only those that wish to be innovators and those that wish to fuel their petty egos.