New York City Ateliers

[bigmonkeynuts]

I've become interested in looking into an atelier type education in New York in the future. I live near Toronto here in Canada, and can have access to Michael John Angel Studios (http://www.angelartacademy.com/) here in Toronto if I wish. I will be taking a tour of this school soon and judging by the website it seems great. However I've been living up here my entire life and am basically quite sick of the area! New York has been a place I've always wanted to go to and I've noticed there are quite a few good art schools in the city.

I'm interested mostly in the Art Students League and the Water Street Atelier. BEFORE anyone jumps all over me, I have searched the internet for info on these schools, as well as a search for past messages on this forum. I've found some info for the League (they have a website of course), but the Water Street Atelier is somewhat of a mystery. I've come across good words about it's education but I haven't found a website or any info on it's cost, curriculum, ect. Some questions:

Any solid information on the Water Street Atelier?

Anyone with any experience at the Water Street Atelier, Art Students League, or even John Angel Studios here in Toronto? Thoughts? (I've come across threads on these schools but some are over a year old)

How is life in New York? Good areas to live? Costs?

Another thing I've been concerned about is me being an international student. Perhaps the thought of going to New York is out of the question seeing as how I'd like to eventually try some freelance illustration work on the side of my education, and I'm unsure if a foriegn student can be self employed legally (really I haven't looked into self employment very much yet, none of this would be happening for another year or so).

But yeah... basically I've been a Sheridan college student for the past couple years and have grown tired of it. Not to mention the fact that my current program, animation, is becoming more and more shady, and lately I've been seriously questioning the reason why I'm in the program. The best part of my learning here has been the fundamental training like drawing and painting from life. The more I have done these basic things the more I have improved. My thoughts are if I can get a good grasp of classical realism, the only thing that would hold me back is the limit of my imagination. So Ateliers hold my interest now.

Thanks for your help.

[Bombesei]

Hey bigmonkeynuts. Here's a thread that talks about Water Street a little bit.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=4393&highlight=water+street

I'm going to start up there in January, so I did a ton of research on Water Street and Jacob Collins, the painter who runs it, and other ateliers too, before I made my decision. I can only tell you what I know through my reading, visiting the school, and talking/interviewing with Collins, so keep in mind I haven't started yet. Basically the curriculum is this: you start off with cast drawing, move to cast painting, move to figure drawing, then figure painting, but you aren't going to be totally limited to drawing casts or any one area. You can move around and be painting while you're working on drawing. I think that each stage is a level of progression that you will be concentrating on the most at any one time. The program is supposed to be 2 years, but Collins says it's really more like 3 to 5, depending on your level coming into the school. The thing he requires in accepting you is your total commitment. He wants to know you're serious because he has so few students. Besides that, I don't really know what he looks for in students, I think each one he accepts is a risk for him. Here's a couple links to Art Renewal pages.

Jacob Collins (http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=821)

Water Street (http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/atelier_list.asp?page=10&sort=state&order=ascending)

Do a Google search too and you'll find a lot more pages about the school and people who have gone through the program. There's a few magazine articles from the past couple years with info on Collins and Water Street also, so I'll try to get the info on those for you too in the next couple days. Check out your local bookstores and try to find the American Artist DRAWING magazine from a couple weeks ago. They have a big article about ateliers with a lot of good info. If you want to go the atelier route, do lots of research and reading and looking until you find the one thats the best fit for you. MindCandyMan should be able to help you out too, so you could PM him. He's at Pantura Studios in South Dakota. And winjer takes classes at the Art Students League, so you could PM him too for more info on NY. I hope this helps. Later!


-Nick

[bigmonkeynuts]

Hey thanks a lot for those links and the info...

I read an earlier thread about 8 messages long that discussed the water street atelier but must have missed the one you posted, thanks!

[SicFrost]

Life, thats something I can tell you about.
To me New York is the best city in the world, it's unlike any other city. The most noticable aspect of living here is that theres always something to do, I went to Canada and down south I was bored for hours at a time, but here it's like the real freedom...There are countless parks and museums if youre into that...for me its like egh, but VILLAGE is my little hot-spot, you just have to see it for yourself. Times Square is just for tourists but if you explore you'll find some place that'll DO IT for you.
Employement is tough here, unless you have connections you're pretty much FUCKED! That, or you'll just have to find a 'regular' job. I'd highly recomend for you to come see the city first, before you make any solid decisions.
I hope I'm not confusing you in any way, I just can't quite put my thoughts into words. I've lived here for 6 years now and it's just not enough...I WANT MOOOORE!!!!
Have any questions? PM me...
later,
_BORIS

[winjer]

The league is pretty good to just do life drawing and painting, but the teachers only come in twice a week and dont really help that much. Most of the classes art renewals site recommends have long waiting lists too. Im just there trying to improve my life drawing.

[OSIRIS]

ive been interested in water street but i couldnt find much info on it either not even a phone number to call. so Bombesei do you know the number? how much does it cost to go there?