Scott King, Bart Hess, Maggie Li and Craig Ward have more art school advice

Our month of Back To School features is on a bit of a roll now and we’ve found there’s a particular appetite for advice from creatives who have been there, done that and maybe even got the t-shirt! So following on from last week’s feature with Sagmeister, Carol Morley, Johnny Kelly and Jon Burgerman, here’s more pearls of wisdom from Maggie Li, Scott King, Craig Ward and Bart Hess…

I think students are obsessed by getting good grades or fulfilling the criteria, when of course anyone who’s any good at art should tell the teacher to fuck off. It should be like: “It’s got nothing to do with you, really, you’re 50 and I’m 20–- what’s it got to do with you?” "Great art is always about rebellion isn’t it, and this tension should be encouraged – art education should be exciting.

There’s modular systems, and people want to tick all the boxes; it’s not creative and people should rebel against that. People try and plan a career before they’ve even started so it becomes a means to an end rather than a thirst for knowledge.

I think with art it shouldn’t be like that. You shouldn’t really know what it is you want to do. If you go to art school at 18/19 and you’ve already planned out what you’re doing you’re never going to be very good at it. Unless you’re a genius, which in my experience, very few people are. 

I’d say that people shouldn’t be scared. If you choose to do art, any kind of art, you should do it for the love of art or ideas, not for a career. If you start looking at other people’s careers or the D&AD Annual, it’s just moronic. It’s got to be an educational process where you go there with an open mind to learn.

Very few people have much to say and I think that comes from everyone being worried about getting a job. I was one of them for a while and then you realise, if you do, say, a redesign of the P&O signage, there’s a good chance you could end up working for P&O. At some point you have to stand up for yourself and determine what it is you want to do. 

www.scottking.co.uk

Enjoy the time you get to be free and experimental. You don’t realise until you leave, but uni is the best place for exploring your ideas, taking risks and trying something new! 

Make your own path and don’t get distracted by what other people are doing. What makes you different from everyone else will be your unique selling point. So finding your style should be a natural development process. Also, draw more!

www.maggie.li

Knowing what I know now, I would work even more intuitively during my studies. Even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing whilst creating, I knew it was going towards something innovative. I had great support from my tutors but it was impossible for them to have a peak into my head. I felt there was a gap, maybe because I wasn’t yet influenced by the industry and could purely focus on my personal fascinations.

I had absolutely no idea when I left school what was going to happen. I think mostly because I had no idea it was possible to make a living doing the things I do now like installations, videos and performances. I think the multidisciplinary character of my work helped a lot to create this possibility. 

www.barthess.nl

I wish I’d known that university would be the last time for a long time where I could do anything I wanted. As soon as you get industry the reality of budgets, deadlines, client comments can drain you. It’s really important to experiment with techniques and
working methods early on as the reality is that industry doesn’t allows allow for it.

With that said, I did all my best work while I was working full time in my evenings and weekends, but that’s not really healthy!

And now I run my own studio in New York. I make my own hours. Make my own luck. Pursue projects I enjoy and earn twice as much as when I worked full time. Life is good. But you should expect to graft for a few years first…

www.wordsarepictures.co.uk