Artists Blog

This was just amazing

I am sure you are aware of the nationwide trend of downsizing, even eliminating, art programs in schools.

What is not entirely known is the impact of removing the fine arts from the education of children.

‘Champions of Change, the Impact of the Arts on Learning’ is the most comprehensive study on the subject of students involvement in the fine arts and how it relates to academic success.

The study builds a strong for students achieving higher levels of academic success and in higher overall numbers when involved with fine art.

Per the study;

- 82.6% of 8th graders earned mostly As and Bs who were involved heavily in fine arts versus 67.2% earning As and Bs who were not.

- 30.07% of the respondents who participate in fine arts performs community service where only 6.28% of the respondents who do not participate in fine arts perform community service.

- Students who are not heavily involved in fine arts have more than double the chance of dropping out of school by the 10th grade.

- 56.64% of the respondents who participate in fine arts read for pleasure where only 34.Chances are you will a handful of musical instruments in good condition gathering dust in a garage or attic.

These are only some of the findings in this study.

Fine arts help teach students far more than how to draw roses in a vase, or how to play the violin.

They help stimulate the creative part of the child’s mind, teach discipline, instill a sense of pride, accomplishment, and self-worth.

These attributes not only help students do better academically, but do better in their adult life, with their career, their new family, their emotional well being.

So what do you do if your child’s school has had major cuts in their art program?

Your first option is, of course, private lessons. You need to be cognizant of the pros and cons in this option.

Lets look at the pros first.

First, due to budget cuts and pressure for schools to ensure their students score well on standardized testing (oddly enough the students who are involved in the arts score better on average) the arts get less attention that other subjects in school. Thus the quality of instruction suffers.

Meaning your child has an excellent chance of getting better fine art instruction in a professional fine art instruction environment. The classes are smaller, sometimes even one on one. The instructor only has to teach that particular art form.

Another plus in private fine art education is that your child’s success is directly tied into the instructors income.

A public school teacher who has half of their art class receive failing grades will still be paid the same at the end of the week.

The equivalent in the private art instruction world would mean a bankrupt business in a very short order.

Providing private art classes is a business. They must produce a good product or risk not being around in the future.

The major con to private lessons is of course if you cannot afford them for your child.

Private lessons cost money. Knowing the benefits of a child being educated in the fine arts, I would happily drive a less luxurious car, or eat out less often to ensure their fine art education.

However if you are living on a fixed income this may not be an option.

To wrap up this point, private lessons are great, often better than what is provided even in schools that have ample art and music budgets.

An alternative solution may be needed if you you are on a limited budget.

There are things that you can do to help your local school raise money for their art programs.

First and foremost is fund raising. This can be gone about in a variety of ways.

For example in my high school in Burbank California a parent spoke to executives at NBC studios. Weeks later, NBC donated high-end production and editing equipment for our high school. Everything for the fine art of film making was at our school.

Long short or no, local businesses or celebrities should not be ignored when trying to solve this problem. In return they get good PR.

Of course you have the traditional events to raise funds. A car wash, garage sales, silent auctions, etc.

The real make break point for the above types of fund raisers is having the right person in-charge to ensure that all the details are taken care of and everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing.

If no one shows up to the car wash because no one knew about it, it won’t do anyone much good. Nor will the dozen cookies at the bake sale.

Organize and communicate.

I know a good amount of people. More pertinently I know people who know more people than I could ever hope to know.

When confronted with the difficult task of refitting your schools classical music program with instruments, it can seem overwhelming.

On the other hand, with a group of hundreds of students and adults it looks like this.

An email/phone call/mailer goes to your network about the problem.

Get your network to scourer their homes and the homes of people they know for instruments to donate. Last year I gifted a nice classical guitar that had been idle for years to a school.

Perhaps you find a few instruments in great condition that have been sitting in closets and garages untouched for 20 years.

Then invite everyone with a pulse and $20 to a bowling fund raiser. You make $20 for everyone who shows up. 50 people show. There is a $1000 right there for new instruments.

The following week target local businesses and parents in your network to gift items of worth for an auction. You get kids to pass out fliers and put up posters around town, put up announcements in craigslist, your local paper, and of course make sure everyone in your network knows and that they are telling everyone else.

The auction is a success raising $3,000.

When you have enough money for the instruments have the kids study hard and put on a fund raiser concert, charge $10 and put the money aside. Somehow someone will manage to lose a tuba.

It is plain to see, a dedicated group can accomplish much more than an individual.

What happens if your school is so strapped for cash and so over crowded that they cannot afford the fine art teacher let alone the space for art classes?

And what if there are no reputable private fine art instruction schools local, or you cannot afford them at this time?

At this point you have to take matters entirely in your own hands. However you are not entirely alone!

There are products on the market, that for a low cost, can still help educate your child in the fine arts.

Here is an example, for a onetime payment of $30 you can have you child take online violin lessons with Violin Master Pros.

There are also online lessons and DVD instruction programs for other musical instruments, writing, drawing, and more.

Any will be far more productive than another evening of video games or cable TV.

Beware of asking uncle John – who plays the piano – to teach your child. If someone demonstrates knowing how to do something well, it by no means demonstrates they can teach it well!

Bad lessons can very quickly turn your child off to the arts. Even if a huge donation is made to the school and the arts are saved, it will do little good if your kid is sour on the arts.

All in all our societies viewpoint must be changed in regards to how important the arts are to our children and our future.

It is irrefutable, children perform better on standardized tests when involved in fine art. Yet many schools will cut art and music to focus on getting better scoring results!

A small fraction of this nations defense budget could easily pay for art and music programs nationwide.

Many parents have the viewpoint, ‘if it is not reading or arithmetic then what real use is it my child’?

Yet in the top science schools in America all have a extensive fine art programs in their universities for a reason. It helps students perform academically!

It is our job as parents, budget cuts or no budget cuts, to ensure that our children receive the fine art education that they need.

If we don’t do it for our children, who is going to?

Just mention the word Jamaica and the mind is filled with images of beach party, reggae and rum. The most populous English speaking island simply exudes with relaxed and laidback life on the beach. It is home to a lot of celebrities while still more rich and famous flock to the party island day in and day out.
The island nation is called Xaymaca by its native inhabitants, which in Arawakan means either “Land of Springs” or “Land of Wood and Water”. A compelling tourist attraction by itself, Jamaica actually owes its enormous and vibrant tourism industry to two persons namely, Bob Marley and Errol Flynn.
Bob Marley
Internationally revered as the King of Reggae music, Bob Marley is a homegrown talent that brought Jamaica to the world’s center stage. His phenomenal influence in the world’s music landscape is best demonstrated by the number of countries that have their own annual Bob Marley Day celebrations, which includes Germany, Belgium, Finland, Italy and Denmark to name a few.
But of course, every fervent fan would always argue that the commemoration of the life and achievements of the person that introduced reggae to the world would never be as meaningful and significant as the one being celebrated in Bob Marley’s own homeland Jamaica. Each year, the country honors Bob Marley through a weeklong music festival dubbed as the Reggae Sunsplash Festival held every February, his birthday month.
A music lover’s Jamaican escapade is never complete without a pilgrimage to various pit stops dedicated to the Reggae King, namely, Bob Marley Museum and Bob Marley Mausoleum to name a few.
Errol Flynn
If Bob Marley brought Jamaica to the world, Errol Flynn brought the world to Jamaica. The latter discovered and fell in love with the pristine beauty of the island when his yacht ran aground along the foreshores of San Antonio sometime in the 1940s. From yachting, he started one of the island’s greatest attractions today which is river rafting.

The Hollywood superstar came to Jamaica and never left. He bought a hotel and later a vast estate in Navy Island where he kept himself busy in his 3,000 acres of ranch and coconut plantation, one of the biggest in the island. Ever since he settled in his Caribbean hideaway, Errol Flynn was never out of guests to entertain, most of whom were Hollywood celebrities that marked the start of tourist exodus to the islands.

An intriguing combination of legend and fact the history of silver in Taxco is a story worth knowing. Originally Cortes himself opened the mines in the hills of Taxco after discovering that the Aztecs had been using silver for barter for centuries. In 1716 silver was re-discovered in Taxco by Don Jose del le Borda, when as legend has it, he was riding in the hills above Taxco and spotted a rich silver vein from the back of his horse. He became very wealthy as a result during a time when silver was worth almost as much as gold and in gratitude to the area built schools, roads and houses for the township.

His most famous contribution to the area is the Santa Prisca Cathedral, built in the Spanish Baroque style which can be seen from anywhere in Taxco as it glistens in the sunlight.Mexico’s war for Independence during the 19th century saw many of the mines destroyed as the Spanish barons fought to prevent them being lost to the revolutionaries. It wasn’t until a chance comment was made to William Spratling, a US citizen and architectural professor who came to the area in the late 1920’s to study Mexico and its culture that Taxco future potential as the world silver capital was realised.

Apparently the US Ambassador commented to Mr Spratling that Taxco had once been the site of seemingly bottomless silver mines for centuries but had not ever been considered a location where jewellery and object of silver where designed and made. This got William Spratling thinking and he set about finding and nurturing the potential talent in the locals and motivating the artisans in the Taxco area to rediscover the craft of silversmithing.Using his own designs he created an apprentice-based training system, training the artistic young and eager people of Taxco and giving them the opportunity to develop their skill as artists and silversmiths.

Within just a few years the quality and beauty of the silver workmanship coming out of the Taxco area gained worldwide recognition for Mexico and other cities where silver was mined soon followed suit.Williams first apprentices are now considered the old masters of Mexican Silver and Antonio Pineda, Hector Aguilar, Margot de Taxco, the Castillos, Ledesma and Chino Ruiz have produced and continue to craft some of the most highly prized and collectible pieces. Mr Spratling became known as “The Father of Mexican Silver” before his death in 1967 in a car accident and a silver bust of Mr Spratling resides in the towns museum to commemorate his contribution to Mexico and the town of Taxco.Every November Taxco holds it world famous ‘Silver Fair’ called ‘Feria Nacional de la Plata’ where craftsmen, artisans and silversmiths show their work and compete to win the prized award of ‘Best Silver Artist of the Fair.’

The local senorita’s also vie for the title of, “Queen of the Silver Fair” and the fair is celebrated with fireworks, concerts, dances and exhibits.Taxco which is pronounced Tahs-ko, itself is located in the hills between Acapulco and Mexico City and is a city with a natural ambiance and charm with its red-tiled roofs, narrow, cobblestone streets that wind up and down the hills of Taxco. These streets are a bustling hive of activity during the day with street merchants, taxi’s and shoppers all vying for space. Over 16,000 silver shops line the tiny Plasa Borda, all streets lead to this, the main plaza in Taxco where bartering is an exciting adventure.

Silver jewellery of every design can be seen in this tiny plaza and exquisite rings, necklaces, bracelets and bangles can be seen flashing in the sun and artfully draped over black clothes to test even the greatest willpower. For those looking for silver it is a Mecca and no-one can help coming back to their accommodation without snagging a bargain or two.

Mexico has three cities where silver jewellery is manufactured; Mexico City itself, Guadalajara and Taxco. Taxco is known s “The Silver Capital of the World.”Mexican silver jewellery so prized around the world for a number of reasons:

As the biggest silver producer in the world today, it is easy to obtain pure silver and most silver jewellery coming out of Mexico is made of sterling silver or 925 silver. Other countries more notably some of the Asian countries tend to dilute their silver to make it go further and it is common to find jewellery at .800 silver content.
Most pieces are hand finished by artisans called silversmiths who hand down their craft through traditional apprenticeships and along with an education these apprentices are given a passion and a love for their art.

Mexican jewellery can be found in every corner of the world and retains its value over the years because of its quality and unmistakable style.

Once an industrial section of cold cement warehouses and rusting rail yards with a flurry of yellow taxicabs passing through, Chel­sea now sparkles with art galleries, trendy new restaurants and its first expensive residential explosion. The conversion has been gradual with an unusual symbiotic relationship be­tween the industrial and the art mart.

The photography gallery of Yossi Milo exists upstairs from a taxi garage. The PaceWildenstein’s Minimalist mausoleum on West 25th is down the street from old artist’s coops. Elite art collectors rub shoulders with auto mechanics as they walk through the streets. But despite this unusual relation­ship, after more than ten years of growth, the Chelsea neighborhood possesses more than 250 galleries that extend from West 13th to West 29th Streets and from 10th Avenue to the West Side Highway in Manhattan, about twice the amount of galleries SoHo had in the early 1990’s.

The migration to Chelsea is a large scale New York City event that has never hap­pened before. All species of art galleries exist in Chelsea in different stages of development. Its crop of galleries consists of parallel reali­ties catering to different audiences and mar­kets from the avant-garde to the academic. With art from places as far as India and as close as Williamsburg, Chelsea reflects con­temporary art’s global marketplace.

“Chelsea is now the dominant mar­ketplace for art culture in New York,” said Renee Vara, an Adjunct Professor at New York University and Lecturer at Guggenheim Museum, where she teaches art history, art theory, and museum studies, and is a private independent curator and art historian. “It offers efficiency and a separate enclave with a collective and attractive element.”

The breakthrough into Chelsea be­gan in 1988 with the opening of the Dia Foun­dation, now Dia Center for the Arts. This cul­tural pioneer set up camp in a vicinity where spaces were large and rents were cheap. By late 1994, Matthew Marks, then a young Up­per East Side dealer, expanded to West 22nd Street and started the “art party scene” in the new neighborhood. At the time, it was impos­sible to predict how Chelsea would be trans­formed or how fast changes would happen.

Paula Cooper arrived in 1996. Cooper had opened SoHo’s first art gallery in 1968 and then joined about 15 other art dealers and moved to far west Chelsea. The space in Chelsea opened in an old garage on West 21st Street, between 10th and 11th av­enues. Because of Cooper’s prominence in the art world and her role in developing SoHo, many art and real estate entrepreneurs took her move as a sign that the neighborhood west of 10th Avenue and bound by 20th and 26th streets was about to be transformed.

The transformation of Chelsea was the answer for rents that had spiralled out of control in SoHo. With most galleries renting and not owning their spaces in SoHo, galler­ies sought out new ventures in other territo­ries where rents were cheaper or the option of owning a building was presented. The idea of Chelsea was ripe for its time when the art world was ready to break old traditions with SoHo. They found them in Chelsea.

As Chelsea dominated the art scene, Mary Boone signaled another stage in her personal evolution as a dealer by estab­lishing a Chelsea branch of her high profile gallery. Gluckman Mayner Architects created a dramatic Chelsea gallery for Boone. Rich­ard Gluckman’s association with Boone dates back to her days on West Broadway. He also designed her gallery at 745 Fifth Avenue.

Boone opened her first space in SoHo on Broadway in 1979 moving into the same building that housed Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend’s legendary galler­ies. Boone later looked for space on 57th Street in the traditional neighborhood of the New York art world.

The layout and details of the Chel­sea gallery originated from the design of her uptown space. The architect created a pow­erful juxtaposition between the details associ­ated with his work and the rugged quality of original wood trusses and wood plank ceiling, which are exposed arcing over the space. The floors are steel-troweled concrete slab, which mimics the floor treatment uptown. And the fa-cade’s storefront of translucent glass reminds one of Gluckman’s design at Boone’s West Broadway gallery. In Chelsea, all three rooms receive natural light by way of the translucent storefront windows in the reception area and through a small central skylight in the rear. The 12-ft.-wide main exhibition area contains a translucent skylight that traverses the entire length of the 24-ft.-high display wall. Spot­lights provide additional lighting.

As the Chelsea area continued to transform, people moved into the area’s first pricey loft conversion on West 22nd Street. Savanna Partners, a young real estate development firm, bought that property at a July 1994 auction for $3 million. Because of zoning requirements, it took Savanna Part­ners one and a half years to get approvals, even though there was very little manufac­turing activity and little hope for any more industrial growth.

Today, Savanna builds huge lofts and rents the street-level spaces to galler­ies and restaurants. Not far to the south, on 17th Street, World Wide Holdings Corp. does something similar, and the Meatpacking District of the far west Village has practically disappeared as old warehouses are being-turned into apartments.

Among Chelsea gallery spaces are other SoHo exiles like John Weber, Barbara Gladstone, Metro Pictures, 303 Gallery, Bose Pacia Gallery, and Agora Gallery.

“Chelsea affords you access to critics and curators that make the rounds regularly to look at galleries,” said Dr. Steve Pacia, co-founder and co-partner with Dr Arani Bose of the Bose Pacia Gallery on West 26th Street.

Bose Pacia Gallery, established in 1994 in SoHo, was the first gallery in the West specializing in contemporary art from South Asia. During the last ten years, Bose Pacia has held over 30 exhibitions and is internationally regarded for promoting the South Asian avant-garde. Visual artists from South Asia work within a unique space that is informed by many cultures, languages and re­ligions. Bose Pacia fosters an active discourse between these artists and the international art community by featuring exhibitions that contextualize contemporary art from this geo­graphic region within its rich artistic traditions and current social tensions.

Established in 1984 in SoHo by a fine artist, Agora Gallery more than doubled its space when it moved to Chel­sea in 2003. A gallery without borders, Agora was one of the pioneer galleries pro­viding representation to both national and international artists.

Recent interviews by its director, Angela Di Bello, in Business News Weekend (NBC) Hellenic Public Radio, and the Wall Street Journal have brought additional atten­tion and visitors to Chelsea.

The New Museum also left SoHo for an interim spot in Chelsea but has closed its doors, with the exception of its bookstore space at the Chelsea Art Museum, for a year and a half until the construction of its much anticipated new building on the Bowery is opened. Designed by the acclaimed Tokyo based company of Sejima and Nishizawa/SA-NAA, the new 60,000 square foot, seven-sto­ry New Museum will be the first art museum building constructed in downtown Manhattan in over a century.

Image taken on 2009-04-07 16:14:36 by neil △ krug.

Young artists, plus young collec­tors, plus newly established gal­leries and the love of art equal the cultural phenomenon sweep­ing the Chelsea art district, as thirty-something art enthusiasts flock to galleries. Has the art world spawned a new generation of young, hip, savvy art aficiona­dos who are destined to become tomorrow’s well informed art col­lectors?

 

The Chelsea art community is boasting of the new involvement with the thirty-some­thing crowd. Texting your friends about the newest opening and exhibition is easy. With new artists and emerging galleries experimenting with various concepts and ideas, the diversity of Chelsea has now ca­tered to this new audience and market giv­ing new energy and vitality to art spaces for creativity.

 

Melissa Sarti, a 32-year-old graduate student from Hunter College stands on the corner of West 25th and 10th Ave. messaging a friend about an art exhibition this Thursday night. “Hey Carl, meet me at 6:30 at White Box,” she wrote. “There’s an awesome installation I want to see and some friends I want you to meet.”

 

The Chelsea corner where she stands seems to be a remote one with a taxi stand, a gas station and a crumbling warehouse just below an old, elevated railroad line. But she stands on the edge of the Chel­sea art world, the largest museum-like space of contemporary art in the world. The sidewalk crowd builds as she walks toward the gallery spaces. She passes a large glass gallery window and moves closer to get a better glimpse of the huge space within an old brick factory. Melissa peers through the window. She sees them, clutching glasses of champagne and wine, as the crowd of young guests inside mar­vel at a new contemporary painting.

 

From Manhattan to Queens, the young trendsetters are coming out in droves, and not just for the wine. Last month at a re­ception at Agora Gallery Mary Ellen Hen­derson and Daniel frequent the gallery. “I like to know what’s going on in the galleries in the neighbor­hood. It’s kind of like for business and pleasure” answers Christina Freeman, a photographer, when asked why she made a point to come to the reception. “We’re artists by nature; some of us are fashion designers, so we have an interest in art. We can truly appreciate it”.

 

Erin Walker and Bren frequent the galler­ies on a regular basis, so what keeps them coming back? “It’s a good chance for us to catch up with each other, and also look for inspiration”. However, The Chelsea galleries are not just for those looking to enhance their knowledge of up-and-com­ing design trends in the contemporary art world. “I like to be able to come out on the weekends, and be able to go from gallery to gallery to gallery. Make an afternoon of it and go to brunch. Get a group of friends together to do something more interesting and define my own taste in art”, offered Jennifer Grace, a publishing assistant from Wired Magazine.

 

New Gangs of Gallerists

 

Sheri Pasquarella, a young art consultant and private dealer, invested in a 27th Street space that once held the Tunnel nightclub until 2001. Several young art gallerists moved their businesses from other parts of the city to a series of old loading docks along the south side of the former Tunnel site. Wanting to create an instant destina­tion location, Pasquarella led the exodus of emerging-artist dealers to a promised land of barren street-level spaces between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues. Oliver Kamm Gallery, Foxy Production, Derek Eller Gallery, Clementine Gallery, John Connelly Pres­ents and Wallspace are now located here. This has added up to be just one of the most concerted efforts at expand­ing Chelsea’s gallery scene since the art world began abandoning SoHo for the West Side in the mid-1990s.

 

New Art Networks

 

Social networks for thirty-somethings in the arts is on the upswing. The Young As­sociates is one of the new social art groups started in Chelsea by a museum space. The Chelsea Art Museum program looks to connect young people with New York’s emerging art com­munity, creating an energet­ic presence in the growth of the museum and a network of innovative thinkers within the arts. The group targets recent graduates and young professionals who would like to learn more about art in an intimate atmosphere that can be pro­vided by a smaller museum. They interact with museum curators, meet artists from New York and create a forum within the framework of the Chelsea Art Museum for networking with other young people in the field. They organize special after par­ties following exhibition openings, cura­tor-led art tours, gallery tours, talks with gallery owners, artist studio visits, invita­tional talks on trends in contemporary art, previews of auctions, and holiday parties.

 

Innovative Investors

 

Get out your auction paddles. A new generation of collectors, hedge-fund managers, technology entrepreneurs and others in their thirties have plunged into the world of contemporary art. During recent years, as world economies waned, prices in the closely watched top 2% of the contemporary-art market were up to 72%, according to London-based Art Mar­ket Research. In contrast, prices of top-tier works in the Old Masters and French Im­pressionist markets fell by 40% and 29%. Christopher Apgar, a young financial adviser, owns works ranging from Jean-Michel Basquiat, the graffiti artist who became an eighties phenomenon, to a silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol. His current hunt is for artistic creations by Gregory Crewdson, a photog­rapher whose work includes promotional shots for the HBO series “Six Feet Under,” and Vic Muniz, known for making sculp­tures of iconic figures out of chocolate and then photographing the pieces.

 

Most young and new collectors have little interest in the Old Masters that capti­vated the previous generation. Part of the reason for the aversion is the astronomi­cal prices they command. Contemporary works are less expensive and are more likely to double in value in a short peri­od. And today, a young collector doesn’t need to spend millions of dollars on a van Gogh to earn the respect of peers. They show they are in touch with the contempo­rary art world by buying up works of new contemporary artists and appearing in the gallery social scene.

 

And while new collectors may be ap­proaching the art market as if it were a marketing venture of capital investments, there is no guarantee that the payoff will be as lofty. The art market can be volatile. The collecting quirks and interests of con­temporary art lovers drive the market. If a few collectors love ocean scenes, prices rise while less favored desert paintings re­main bargains. Fluctuations can differ due to different collectors entering and leaving the art market at various times. The result is an artist may be “hot” for a few years and when prices plateau and rise again, another collecting generation seizes the artists’s worth. The art industry urges young people to buy for eprsonal enjoyment and not just a quick profit. The lifestyle of today’s new collectors is not about ball gowns and expensive jewelry. It is all about walking around your home in sweat pants talking with a friend on the cell phone about the contem­porary art plastered on the walls that you look at and appreciate. It is about comput­ers, blackberry’s, ipods, and ibooks. Most of all, it is about texting your friends for the next social gathering at a Chelsea art gallery opening on Thursday evening.

 

‘Creative and Commercial Arts’ are an upcoming and much in demand field today. Those with creative aptitude and good art skills have no lack of job opportunities with a rise in the media, advertising and publishing sectors. To hone the inherent skills, one can avail the formal training which is available for fine arts at the certificate, diploma and degree level at a number of institutions. The course duration could vary from 1-5 years. Those who want to make a career out of it can pursue courses at institutes across India and abroad. To become a successful commercial artist, one must have a creative bent of mind and an eye for detail. Apart from this, for more details visit to www.insomnia-battle.com one needs perseverance and an indomitable will power to pursue this field of fine arts as a profession.

Commercial fine arts could refer to painting, sculpting, applied art, graphic interior design, ceramic design, mural design, metal craft, pottery design and painting. It is important to get training as a course helps one nurture and align the creative energy and gives the technical edge and finesse required to survive in an industry where competition is ever increasing. There is training available at both degree and diploma level. For doing a Bachelors Degree course in Fine Arts (BFA), one must have successfully cleared the Higher Secondary Examinations or 10+ 2. Subsequently, more details visit to www.101-save-money.com for acquiring a Post Graduation Degree in Commercial Fine Arts; one must be a graduate in Fine Arts.

There are many premier institutes in India where Commercial Fine Arts is taught as a subject of study. These include Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art (Mumbai), Faculty of Fine Arts (Baroda), Kala Bhavan, Shantiniketan, Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi) and College of Art (New Delhi).

Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art is based in Mumbai. It is a state government college that has four departments which offer training for various types of Degree and Diploma courses. The Department Of Painting offers BFA (Painting) 4 years, Post Degree MFA(Painting ) 2 years, MFA (Painting) (by papers) in Portraiture, MFA (Painting) in Graphic Art, MFA (Painting) in Creative Painting. The Department Of Sculpture And Modelling offers BFA (Sculpture) 4 years and Diploma Sculpture and Modelling 4 years. The Department Of Arts And Crafts offers BFA (Craft- Metal Work) 4 years, BFA (Craft – Textile Design) 4 years, BFA (Craft- Interior Decoration) 4 years and BFA (Craft – Ceramics) 4 years. The Department Of Art offers Teacher Training Art Teacher’s Diploma ( A.T.D.) 2 years, Diploma in Art Education (Dip. A. ED.) 1 year and Art Master Certificate Course (part-time) 1 year.

Symbiosis Institute of Design based in Pune offers the following degree programs: Bachelor of Design (B. Des) in Communication Design, Bachelor of Design (B. Des ) in Product Design, Bachelor of Design (B. Des) in Fashion Communication and Bachelor of Design (B. Des) in Fashion Design. The institute tries to offer an optimum mix of traditional skills, new media skills and soft skills.

Other than these, Jamia Milia Islamia, Loyola College, Amity University, University of Calcutta, Rabindra Bharati University, International Institute of Fine Arts, Apeejay College of Fine Arts, Aligrah Muslim University, University of Jammu, Animation and Fine Arts Academy, Anna University and the University of Delhi offer courses on fine arts.

Those who have acquired a degree or diploma in fine arts, commercial arts or creative arts can work as freelancers. This allows for variety and free hand in their projects. There is demand for specialists in drawing in the publishing industry and newspaper houses as illustrators, cartoonists, and designers. Those who are good at applied art have unlimited opportunities in advertising agencies as graphic artists, designers, visualisers, and creative directors. Trained artists have a wide arena of options in front of them, ranging from working in art studios, advertising companies, fashion houses etc. Other related careers are teaching, direction, photography, television, clothing and fashion, as art directors for magazines, on-line services, software companies, manufacturers, promotion and product design.

In the television and media field, one could design the non verbal presentations for television programmes involving trade figure analysis, election results, etc. A commercial artist can also design stamps and letter heads for government organizations. Software firms in India require experts in commercial fine arts as ‘Graphic Equalisers’.

Apart from working in India, one can also explore career options abroad. One can organize exhibitions and auction his creations abroad. Then, there is an option to conduct various workshops on fine arts and its related fields. Other related option is to be art critic and write reviews for various art magazines which are quite popular abroad. Thus, there is no dearth of job options for skilled and trained artists in creative arts, fine arts and commercial arts. After a course from a good institute, one can land a job with either a good company or work on his/her own and earn name, fame and wealth. This field can give one high visibility and recognition with one good piece of art.

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