ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

Prospective art-school students, pay attention! It’s that time of year again, when the world’s institutions of higher art learning flood your email inbox with one polite "call for applications" after another. The new semester is getting under way, and your tuition dollars are much appreciated.

The Vermont Studio Center in the Green Mountain mill town of Johnson, Vt., for instance, offers and eight-week MFA studio residency; visiting artists include Nayland Blake, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe andKathleen Gilje.

Too close to home? How about the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver? It offers "teen programs" for students aged 15-18 in illustration, digital video, portfolio production and more.

Still too North American? Try maHKU, otherwise known as the Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design in the Netherlands, which draws a global student body studying in diverse design fields.

Otherwise, herewith below, some of the choicer offerings that have caught Art School Confidential’s wandering eye.

* The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is launching a Master of Arts in New Arts Journalism, with an application deadline of Mar. 1, 2011. Now, Art School Confidential isn’t quite sure what "new" arts journalism might be, but we do approve of the discipline, since of course we are the Zen Masters of the field. The list of faculty includes the famous James Elkins as well as art historian Maud Lavin, critics Susan Snodgrass and James Yood, and, sadly, the late Chicago art writer Kathryn Hixson (1955-2010).

* For those with an eye to the art market, Sotheby’s Institute of Art has launched its spring 2011 courses, some of which take only a day or two. "The Gallery Business: New Trends in New York" is slated for Mar. 18-19, while "Navigating the Chinese Contemporary Art Market" is held on May 20. "The Art of Collecting" is a 90-minute class spread over six weekly meetings. Classes are priced at $550-$975.

* Our friends at the School of Visual Arts in New York are ready to send you around the world, too. One course that seems especially alluring in the middle of New York’s snowstorm is "Action Surf Photography in Rincon, Puerto Rico," an eight-day workshop (Mar. 5-13) led by Art Brewer on, well, how to take pictures of surfers.

SVA is happily sending students on a trip from Istanbul to Florence, to Venice and Rome, to Southern France, Shanghai, Barcelona, Provence. . . . Where do we sign up? Tuition ranges from $3,000 to $4,000.

* Last but not least, for a program with a bit more of a homegrown flavor, Chicago art dealer and blogger Paul Klein is offering "a mostly online course to teach artists how to succeed."  Klein’s list of guest speakers includes Tony Fitzpatrick, Theaster Gates, Richard Polsky, Jerry Saltz and Ed Winkleman. Tuition, depending on participation, is $900 or $1,200.

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