Introduction
Prior to starting this BA, I had only done 6 months of pottery evening classes. Besides this, I hadn’t done any drawing or painting since primary school, and had a very elementary grasp of visual language. At the end of a three year BA, I still felt as if I didn’t see well enough, or have developed my practice enough. I have only just started getting into my stride at the end of my final year. For this reason, I decided to consider the possibility of postgraduate courses.
There were many postgraduate courses available ranging from post-graduate diplomas to research degrees, from ceramics to fine art courses. Therefore rather than looking at a narrow range, say comparing a number of MA Ceramics courses, I decided to take a broad survey. I considered that this would put me in the best position to decide on whether to carry on with further study, and what manner of study to embark on.
The courses I researched had two variables: academic qualification (PG.Dip, MA, MFA, M.Phil/Ph.D) and subject matter (ceramics and fine art). Each variable addressed a particular question. The level of academic qualification reflected the balance of practice and research. The PG.Dip was almost entirely practice-based. The amount of critical writing increased in the MA and increased further through to the Ph.D, where half of the effort spent in the course was in research. Keeping my artistic development in mind, the question here was whether I needed to develop my practice more or my critical and conceptual framework.
The second question concerned whether I wanted to develop my work within a ceramics context or a fine art one. A ceramics course drew on a completely different heritage, culture, and set of experts to a fine art course. A ceramics course had clay as a foundation perspective, while a fine art course had a cross-media approach. Each type of course also fed into very different professional worlds; each had different sets of galleries, critics, collectors, professional associations and funders.
There were only two limitations to my selection of courses to survey. The first was the course’s proximity to my home. I did not want to travel more than 1.5 hours per journey. Or if I had to rent a room, I did not want to have to travel more than two hours (door-to-door) to get home at weekends. Hence, I considered the following courses:
- PG.Dip, Royal Academy Schools
- MA / MFA, Slade School of Fine Art
- MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art
- MA Ceramics, Royal College of Art
- M.Phil / Ph.D, University of Westminster
- MFA, Middlesex University
- MFA, Reading University
- PG.Cert / MA Applied Art, London Metropolitan University
- MFA, Goldsmiths College
- MFA, Central St Martins
- MA Design: Ceramics, Central St Martins
- MA Craft, Camberwell College
- MFA, Chelsea College of Art
- MFA Sculpture, Wimbledon College of Art
- Ph.d, Bucks Chiltern University
The second limitation was the number of courses I could reasonably survey within the time I had, and to fit in this report’s word count. I estimated that I would be able to research four or five courses and attend their respective open days.
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Methodology
Identifying
I began the research by identifying the various postgraduate courses online, using search sites such as the Prospects website and www.FindaMasters.com. Out of the large amount of art, design, applied arts, critical theory courses, I shortlisted the above 15 as a representative sample of courses containing the two variables I desired.
Open Days
The next step was to contact the courses and reserve a place on an open day. However impressed I was by the online literature, I needed to get a feel of the learning environment and the tutors by attending in person.
By the time I started the project, some of the open days had already passed. Others clashed with prior engagements in my diary. The remainder either did not organise open days or did not respond to my emails. Eventually I confirmed that I would attend open days of the first five courses on the above list. My procedure then was to read the course propectus in detail and note any questions that arose.
During the open day, I had three aims:
- to clarify these questions in order to fill gaps in information;
- to assess the suitability of physical resources and space; and
- to observe the rapport between the tutors and students, and how they interacted with us, the prospective students.
Evaluation
On the basis of the information gathered, I was able to compare and evaluate the courses against my initial two questions: whether I needed to develop my practice more, and whether I wished to contextualise myself in ceramics or fine art. In fact, the process of researching enabled me to answer these questions, and ultimately make a decision on whether I should apply for postgraduate study.
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