Robert De Niro delivered an ironically inspiring commencement speech by opening with, “You made it. You’ve graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts and you’re fucked.”
Sadly, De Niro is generally right. These art students are fucked and the audience is roaring because they all know it.
Why are art school graduates fucked? For starters, Tisch School of the Arts students are currently paying an annual tuition of over $50,000, not to mention the expense of living in New York City.
When we trade a future filled with inescapable student loan debt for the very dim hope of a bright future as an artist, we screw ourselves.
What destroys artists is their banking on hope rather than taking planned and focused action.
The sad thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. The Internet gives us a fighting chance to build and own our platforms and connect directly to our fans and collectors.
But art schools are skipping this subject and heaping some of the highest amounts of inescapable student loan debt on their students while teaching them skills that will render them ill equipped to repay their debts.
According to the Wall Street Journal, arts-focused schools are shown to rack up THE most student loan debt. The default rates are so high that US Department of Education has arts focused schools under much needed scrutiny.
What’s also really sad is that in a few short years from their commencement, these enthusiastic art school graduates will stop making art all together.
Why?
The demands of repaying of student loan bills, then car payments, and increasing rent, and children, you get the picture, will eventually twist them away from their passion and point them towards a sensible job. If these art school graduates are lucky enough to get a sensible job based on their unmarketable skill set.
Now hold up. I’m not talking about graphic and industrial design majors. If they’re talented, experienced, and connected, their prospects are much brighter.
Art students may have learned how to make art in art school but they haven’t learned how to make money from their art.
De Niro asserts, although these art students are fucked, The good news is that’s not a bad place to start because, “you’re path is not easy but it’s clear.”
I disagree.
Our path is not clear. One trip to the Career Office at your local art school will confirm this.
The Career Office does not have the answers and it’s not their fault.
Why? Art schools teach how us how to make “art.” They won’t and they just can’t teach “sales and marketing schools for solo-preneurs.”
In fact, business schools don’t even teach sales and marketing for solo-preneurs.
Even if art schools could teach you the necessary skills vital to running a small business, art school academics are the very last group I would turn to.
Why? Academics are not a reliable and current resource to learn about how to build a business. You need to learn from someone who has been there and done that.
Academics are just not entrepreneurs; they are academics, employees, with an employee mindset.
Entrepreneurs learn about how to build a business from other entrepreneurs. Always have.
Let’s keep this real. Some artists have absolutely no interest in business.
Guess what? It’s these artists who are really fucked.
So what’s the answer? We need to start with an honest conversation before students limit their futures by shackling themselves with debt.
De Niro goes on to explain that these art students didn’t have a choice, that they succumbed to this choice because of the nature of being an artist.
An artist’s “common sense” is trumped by their passion.
Bullshit.
De Niro is implying that passion and common sense are opposing and incompatible forces.
Please don’t swallow this destructive assumption.
Succumbing to one’s artistic passion does not equal succumbing to bad sense.
We are all responsible for our own well being, regardless of what we do for a living.
The fact is, passion, creativity, and strategic thinking, the highest form of common sense, are the very best combination for entrepreneurship. And this is exactly what we artists are wired for.
Could we please just stop with this false, limiting, and very tired assertion that artists just don’t possess good sense? It’s condescending and disrespectful.
It’s not true of me and it’s not true of so many artists who I have had the pleasure and privilege to work with.
What do you think? Are you “fucked?” If so, tell us why.
Did you enjoy this article?
I agree with you Elaine!
Our life is the story we tell ourselves.
I refuse to tell the story that artists are fucked and I will always call bullshit on anyone who celebrates such a limiting and destructive belief, including a famous artist like Robert De Niro.
I’m not fucked.
I’m determined.
I understand it is a difficult journey being an artist and finding balance between a creative passion and a day job and family and debt … But thats life. You get what you get and you find ways to get to where you want to be from there. I always tell my fellow artists – its not easy but its also not impossible. Keep at it!
I feel like a proud mommy when I’m able to motivate a fellow artist or when I hear of other artists pushing through and becoming the professionals they want to be.
Id also like to add that I find your posts genuinely inspiring, you’re like a modern day muse. 😀 more people should do what you do.