In 1977, an international poll on occupational prestige ranked the artist the lowest of the professions, but above most occupations. The problem never would have occurred to anyone before 1900. With few exceptions, an artist's credentials for the profession were clear and traditional. They included craft and art school training, the making of objects, and their exhibition where other artists also showed their work. Whether the goal is effecting social change, uniting one's internal life with the external world, exploration of the expressive potential of art's elements, or perpetuatuion of art itself, each time artists are alone in the studio confronting their materials, they are born and live again.
Art remains an act of love, a potent gesture of life, a fist clenched against death.
All class syllabi are tentative and subject to change as necessary to accommodate the needs of the class.