Beautiful wall. Thanks for sharing. Read recently that colleges are closing at a rate of one per week. One of my best friends is a college president & it’s very difficult hearing what she has to say on the topic. Quite a challenge, in many respects.
That is very distressing. On the one hand, not everyone benefits from a college education, but I believe that everyone who believes that they might, should have the chance to try. And on a third hand, there is serious shortage in fields like plumbing, electricians, and builders and these careers are crucial too.
I’m not sure what the answer is. It will require some serious thought and discussion, which I hope will happen.
I got my start at UArts too, in a way — their video editing class in the (now defunct) Continuing Education department really enabled me to pull a 180 after undergrad and let me launch a career in a new field. Even tangentially, UArts has impacted so many.
The school has been so present in Philly’s art scene for so long (as a source of young talent, a place for artists to pick up teaching gigs when they could, as a gallery, as a venue for non-UArts classes and performances) that I really think the city will be a poorer place without it. But you’re absolutely right that the rise in tuition has not been commensurate with graduates’ salaries. True in so many fields, of course, but perhaps especially cruel for artists, who ought to have the flexibility to experiment, and fail, and try again, without the crushing pressure of overwhelming debt right out of the gate.
To say nothing of the immediate impact — I keep bumping into folks around town who are in shock. Really cruel for students, faculty, staff to learn through a newspaper article late on a Friday that their future plans are just done. Just so poorly handled.
Seeing your poignant painting brings me some comfort, though. The foundations already laid aren’t going anywhere, and the artists are gonna be out here doing their thing for the world.
I don’t know whether it is my ever advancing age and subsequent wisdom (ha ha, just kidding) or that I live on an actual island where the ripple effects of things are more immediate and obvious, but I have come to realize that nothing happens in a vacuum and that one action is multiplied 100 fold.
So what you say about the far reaching effects of UArts in the Philadelphia region and beyond, really hit home for me. I know at least 2 other UArts grads here on my little island way on the far NW corner of the country, and one of my best friends in the Seattle area, who I met a couple years of relocating here, was also a PCA grad.
The financial crash of 2008 hit me really hard, and I expect it hit many other creative workers hard too. Then as the pandemic fell upon us, those in the performing arts were hit so hard.
The gift of trying out our flights of fancy and failing spectacularly is one of the gifts of a university arts program. Painters are gonna paint, dancers are gonna dance, musicians are gonna make music no matter what. While climbing hurdles and falling into deep pits is part of the creative learning process, it’s hard not to feel that someone is leaving these future artists and present faculty and staff in the lurch with no fault of them.
Will we learn that someone was playing fast and loose with the school checkbook, or taking chances that have nothing to do with whether this painting has too much red in it?
I'm not sure how you're following the story but I >> think << this link will get you by the Inquirer's pay wall. This story ran today. Seems it would take ~$40 million to save the school but already Temple is interested and in the game. This may turn out OK after all.
I have been following after being alerted by Cami. It will be interesting to see what (if anything) comes of this. If Temple is just trying to fill their own main campus (as opposed to Tyler School of Art) program, it will be like a giant jellyfish absorbing a very small fish, until the small fish is no longer a distinct thing of its own. If, however, they want to create a separate, but part of the larger system (like Tyler is) and it is financially feasible for them to do that, this could be a very good thing, especially if they can keep the iconic S. Broad street building as part of the art school.
I am sad, but I have mixed feelings about it. If a school no longer offers what its students are looking for, at a cost that won’t put them into financial distress for decades to come, has it out lived its usefulness? I should know better than most, you can’t put a financial equation on top of every pursuit. School left me with not much in the way of really marketable skills and if I had taken on $200K worth of debt (plus interest) I would have ended up not being able to do what I do now. It’s a quandary, for sure.
But yes, I am very sad it is ending it’s more than 100 year run.
Add on top of that, a society that claims to value art, at least that of long dead white men, but puts no value on the lives of the artists, musicians, actors, writers, and dancers, that they are attempting to scrape the data off of everything we do, pour it into the computer so that it spits out “art” without having to pay any artists.
Beautiful wall. Thanks for sharing. Read recently that colleges are closing at a rate of one per week. One of my best friends is a college president & it’s very difficult hearing what she has to say on the topic. Quite a challenge, in many respects.
That is very distressing. On the one hand, not everyone benefits from a college education, but I believe that everyone who believes that they might, should have the chance to try. And on a third hand, there is serious shortage in fields like plumbing, electricians, and builders and these careers are crucial too.
I’m not sure what the answer is. It will require some serious thought and discussion, which I hope will happen.
I got my start at UArts too, in a way — their video editing class in the (now defunct) Continuing Education department really enabled me to pull a 180 after undergrad and let me launch a career in a new field. Even tangentially, UArts has impacted so many.
The school has been so present in Philly’s art scene for so long (as a source of young talent, a place for artists to pick up teaching gigs when they could, as a gallery, as a venue for non-UArts classes and performances) that I really think the city will be a poorer place without it. But you’re absolutely right that the rise in tuition has not been commensurate with graduates’ salaries. True in so many fields, of course, but perhaps especially cruel for artists, who ought to have the flexibility to experiment, and fail, and try again, without the crushing pressure of overwhelming debt right out of the gate.
To say nothing of the immediate impact — I keep bumping into folks around town who are in shock. Really cruel for students, faculty, staff to learn through a newspaper article late on a Friday that their future plans are just done. Just so poorly handled.
Seeing your poignant painting brings me some comfort, though. The foundations already laid aren’t going anywhere, and the artists are gonna be out here doing their thing for the world.
I don’t know whether it is my ever advancing age and subsequent wisdom (ha ha, just kidding) or that I live on an actual island where the ripple effects of things are more immediate and obvious, but I have come to realize that nothing happens in a vacuum and that one action is multiplied 100 fold.
So what you say about the far reaching effects of UArts in the Philadelphia region and beyond, really hit home for me. I know at least 2 other UArts grads here on my little island way on the far NW corner of the country, and one of my best friends in the Seattle area, who I met a couple years of relocating here, was also a PCA grad.
The financial crash of 2008 hit me really hard, and I expect it hit many other creative workers hard too. Then as the pandemic fell upon us, those in the performing arts were hit so hard.
The gift of trying out our flights of fancy and failing spectacularly is one of the gifts of a university arts program. Painters are gonna paint, dancers are gonna dance, musicians are gonna make music no matter what. While climbing hurdles and falling into deep pits is part of the creative learning process, it’s hard not to feel that someone is leaving these future artists and present faculty and staff in the lurch with no fault of them.
Will we learn that someone was playing fast and loose with the school checkbook, or taking chances that have nothing to do with whether this painting has too much red in it?
I guess more will be revealed, soon, huh?
Hi Anne,
I'm not sure how you're following the story but I >> think << this link will get you by the Inquirer's pay wall. This story ran today. Seems it would take ~$40 million to save the school but already Temple is interested and in the game. This may turn out OK after all.
https://www.inquirer.com/education/uarts-abruptly-closing-june-loss-accreditation-20240531.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3S2u8XOWxDp30Piom0dmFeBUKROcS3cbWKcRg-O6pIvYeQYoeANBrlyL0_aem_AfxchoqPeodPvM4y59mcCj03Wp1Fuv7d-Mhh22ZOk6tVE08jbmFr8HVAq3nnu_dxdQVzoqUVtbntF2MUjkkLjqQT
I have been following after being alerted by Cami. It will be interesting to see what (if anything) comes of this. If Temple is just trying to fill their own main campus (as opposed to Tyler School of Art) program, it will be like a giant jellyfish absorbing a very small fish, until the small fish is no longer a distinct thing of its own. If, however, they want to create a separate, but part of the larger system (like Tyler is) and it is financially feasible for them to do that, this could be a very good thing, especially if they can keep the iconic S. Broad street building as part of the art school.
I’m reserving judgement.
I hate that your school is closing. This is tragic. I am so sorry.Thinking of you.
I am sad, but I have mixed feelings about it. If a school no longer offers what its students are looking for, at a cost that won’t put them into financial distress for decades to come, has it out lived its usefulness? I should know better than most, you can’t put a financial equation on top of every pursuit. School left me with not much in the way of really marketable skills and if I had taken on $200K worth of debt (plus interest) I would have ended up not being able to do what I do now. It’s a quandary, for sure.
But yes, I am very sad it is ending it’s more than 100 year run.
Add on top of that, a society that claims to value art, at least that of long dead white men, but puts no value on the lives of the artists, musicians, actors, writers, and dancers, that they are attempting to scrape the data off of everything we do, pour it into the computer so that it spits out “art” without having to pay any artists.