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A couple of generations ago, I earned a BFA as an art major at one of the best colleges in the US. It was affiliated with a major art museum in a major city, so the education should have been first class. I did receive an excellent education in all the fine arts, but on graduation day, I was as prepared to make a decent living in our money-driven economy as Vincent Van Gogh was when he started. Except I didn't have Vincent's talent, nor brother Theo to support me.

Vincent produced some 700 paintings in his short life, but history shows his brother, a Paris art dealer, sold exactly one of them while Van Gogh was alive. The artist shot himself at age 38, and died despondent, homeless, hungry and broke. I don't even want to talk about the ear job.

My point is that anyone who wants to be a traditional fine artist can find many colleges and universities, both in the US and abroad, where such exotic education is provided. Tuition and art supplies are expensive, but not for you if your family is wealthy. In other words, don't delude yourself into planning the life of a Van Gogh or Picasso unless you never have to make a living at it.

If you're a high school student who is planning your college art major, or anyone else who has decided to enter the field of art, make sure you think career reality first, dreams second. Unless you're that rich kid who will never have to work for a living, you have to use all your practical smarts.

Seeking advice from a high school counselor could be of some help, although most of them are repressed academics and have few practical smarts about making a living in art out in the business jungle. Talk to a successful graphic artist, one currently earning good bucks in publications, computer graphics, animation, digital imaging or whatever else is new and profitable in commercial art.

As some smart high school students have learned when they were sophomores and juniors, by working weekends and summers, a good way to break into the art field is to get a part-time job as an intern, gofer or janitor with an ad agency, animation studio or computer graphic design shop.

Find out what career path appeals to you, or more importantly, how you can hone the right skills to take that path. In addition to trying to break in as a student part-timer, check out the curriculum of colleges and universities that offer art subjects and majors that parallel the demands of today's business world, not the traditional art outlets that caused the broke and frustrated Vincent Van Gogh to give himself such a close shave.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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