Permission to Fail Response

There were certain aspects of the article “Permission to Fail” that I found valid, but many of the points the author makes are frustrating and a little biased.  What angered me first was that the author never actually went through art school himself.  He only talks about an old girlfriend that he had that was an artist, so he is not in the position to form a valid claim about art schools.  He makes the point that art school is not meant to teach students how to make art, but instead it teaches them to be artists.  In some ways I agree with this statement because art school does teach students how to form artist-like work habits, how to talk about it, and how to put a voice in your work.  However, these students cannot be artists without knowing how to actually make the art, so of course art schools have to teach about how to make art.  The author also discusses the fact that art students are asked to “divorce themselves from who they are.”  I find this theory to be ridiculous because as an art student myself, I have never been asked to become something that I am not.  Quite the opposite is true.  Art schools encourage students to express who they are and typically the art reflects subjects that they know best, like family or culture.  My overall opinion of the article is that there are many points that the author makes that do not actually have real experience tied with them and that he is not in the position to have most of the opinions that he does.