So Your Kid Wants to Go to Art School… Now What?  

Karen Tuveson | Contributing Columnist

When our children are little, we celebrate their creativity.

We hang their drawings on the family refrigerator. We enroll them in music lessons, dance classes, theater programs and summer art camps. We praise their imaginations and proudly tell people how creative they are.

But if the interest continues, somewhere around high school the conversation begins to change.

Suddenly parents start asking: Is it practical? Can you make a living doing that? What kind of job are you going to get?

As a professional artist, community arts organizer and mother of an art-school student, I hear versions of these questions regularly. Parents approach me because their child is interested in art and the parents aren’t quite sure what to do about it.

I understand why.

They aren’t really asking me if art matters.

They’re asking if their child is going to be okay.

The Arts Aren’t the Only Uncertain Career
There is a persistent assumption that pursuing the arts represents an unusually risky path.

But certainty isn’t something any college major can promise.

Students change majors. Graduates change professions. Entire industries evolve, and even disappear. Jobs that appear secure today may be very different in ten years.

Creative careers aren’t exempt from uncertainty. They simply show that uncertainty more visibly.

What parents can look for instead is something far more useful than certainty: commitment.

Is your child consistently making things without being prompted? Are they teaching themselves new skills? Seeking classes or experiences? Asking for better tools? Looking at other artists’ or designers’ work? Accepting feedback and trying again?

Those behaviors tell you far more than whether your child happens to be “talented.”

Art School Is Not the Easy Option
One misconception deserves to disappear: art school is not four years of creatively doing whatever you feel like doing.

My daughter is in her third year studying Communication Design with an emphasis in Graphic Design at one of the top arts schools in our country. Long before college, she spent years teaching herself professional software, taking intensive advanced summer programs, studying drawing and building a portfolio.

For college applications, in addition to the regular application, strong grades and customized essays, she had to create a 10-15 piece portfolio targeted towards specific programs at each school.

She entered college understanding that creative work requires discipline and hard work.

After her first drawing critique, she called and told me most students had cried. The professor hadn’t been cruel, but most of them simply weren’t accustomed to having their work directly evaluated. They were used to being the best and most creative person in their circle up until then.

By the end of that first year, another divide became obvious. Students who regularly skipped classes, submitted incomplete work or assumed art school was primarily about having fun began disappearing.

Talent wasn’t the dividing line. Work ethic was. 

Talent Is Just the Beginning
Parents naturally worry if their child has enough talent.

After more than 30 years working professionally in the arts, I think there’s a more important, two-part question: 

Are they resilient, and willing to do the work?
Creative careers require an unusual combination of imagination, discipline, and grit.

Artists across all industries have to generate ideas, master technical skills, meet deadlines, negotiate criticism, communicate their thinking, solve problems and keep producing work even when inspiration isn’t cooperating.

They also have to learn the business surrounding their creativity.

That means learning how to communicate professionally, present work, understand audiences, manage money, build relationships and advocate for the value of what they create.

Creativity and practicality aren’t opposites.

Successful creative professionals need both.

Parents Have an Important Role
Supporting an art kid doesn’t mean blindly telling them everything they create is wonderful.

In fact, that won’t prepare them well at all.

Ask questions.

Why did you make this? Why those colors? What are you trying to communicate? What kind of work interests you? Where do you imagine using these skills?

And then listen.

Those conversations help young creatives learn something every professional artist eventually needs: how to think critically about their work and communicate why it matters.

Give them opportunities to explore. Introduce them to different creative professions. Visit colleges before the pressure of applications begins. When possible, let them meet working artists, designers, filmmakers, architects, illustrators and other creative professionals.

Most importantly, take their interest seriously enough to be truthful about it.

The path isn’t easy.

Neither is engineering, medicine, entrepreneurship, law or countless other careers that demand years of training, sacrifice and persistence. 

What I Can Tell Parents 
For parents who want to know what to do with an art kid, my answer is straightforward.

Pay attention.

Encourage them without creating unrealistic expectations. Give them access to tools and experiences whenever possible. Talk about both creativity and business. Help them understand that criticism is a standard part of professional, creative growth.

And watch what they do with those opportunities.

A child who continually comes back to the work — who experiments, learns, practices, gets frustrated, adjusts and returns again — is telling you something important.

Listen.

I have no idea exactly where my daughter will be professionally in five years, ten years or twenty.

But I know this: she respects the work. She takes her education seriously. She understands that being creative isn’t an exemption from hard work; it’s a commitment to it.

As a parent, I can’t ask for a guarantee about where that path leads.

But I can make sure she knows I take the path seriously too.

Photo Credit: Author supplied