EDUCATION: Where Have All The Artists Gone?

As another semester starts I sink back down into the comfort of my couch and sigh. Every semester I scan the local community college course offerings with an eye on the New Media, English Lit and Writing, and one that I really find calling to me named 3D Digital Animation. Unfortunately, it's been consistently canceled for lack of student interest.

I don't understand this. This is in a school that regularly has student artwork of exceptional quality on display in the halls and an outstanding art faculty. What are these students striving toward? A sidewalk spot on the Champs de Elysees? The same situation that always affected the artist affects the writers–and there are many in the multitude of English classes available–that of having the unlikelihood of your talent and desire of a one-man show at a New York gallery or a 3-book publishing contract ever come to being. More likely, like the photographer who does weddings to keep him in film for Sunday tramps through the woods, the artist and writer up to now had few choices to make a living with his artistic talent. Up to now.

On tonight's local news I happened to catch a story on Blue Sky, an animation company that moved from New York into Connecticut lured by tax breaks and which has become a growing company looking to hire more workers in the future.  They do movies, but I've always felt that the best time was now for both artists and writers to fulfill their dreams and to put their talent to work with the number and manner of animation films both on the big screen and produced for internet viewing together with the growing need for expanded narrative video gaming.

Right now, in a bad economy, it appears that a check of the job listing on the Blue Sky site indicates a need for 17 positions. Yet right here in a Connecticut college, where an opportunity awaits young artists to develop their talents in a growing and exciting field, classes are canceled for lack of interest.