Students: art and soul
Sir: There is one point which Mr Maclure's comprehensive article on 'Students: Art and
Soul' (21 June) failed to mention. Each art
student, having completed his pre-Diploma year, is free to decide upon the course and col-
lege to which he wishes to apply. If he is wise, he will make it his business to find the course and the college most suited to his requirements, and then get on with it. Of course, each college has its drawbacks, whether poor facilities, bad lecturers, or both. It is up to us students to ex- tend and develop our own creative talents—one cannot expect Utopia on Earth. Excellent lec- turers and facilities act only as stimulants in Art Education and cannot guarantee results. Provided a student has positive ideas even the limits of the DipAD course cannot hold him back.
It is inevitable that an applied art course tends to be more rigid than a fine art course in order that students may learn the techniques and disciplines that will be re- quired of them when they leave. It would be impossible for our course to be otherwise. There is nevertheless a lack of communication between design students and industry. It is up to us to solve this problem ourselves—after all, we ought to be concerned about our own future—and nobody, in my experience of art colleges, ever grumbled about students making inquiries. Irene Crawford' The Graphics Department, St Martin's College of Art, 109 Charing Cross Road, London WC2
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