Another point in favour of commencing in a really first-class studio is that when the artist goes elsewhere she carries with her the prestige of the place where she learned her craft.
Failing a big studio, the beginner should get into a small one; into any studio, in fact, rather than to attempt free-lance work in an untrained state. In art, more than most things, experience is the best teacher; and no amount of theory can really take the place of practical experience. A month or so in even a third-rate studio shows one how to apply art-school training more effectively than would a year of desultory free-lancing. There are, however, a certain few artists who develop well without a studio training. Every studio, to some extent, has a flattening effect on individuality which some artists feel they must at any cost avoid. But even those brave spirits who sacrifice an early technical grounding for complete artistic freedom eventually realize that they might have learned from a spell of studio work things which would have saved them much trial and tribulation later in their career.
But big studio, small studio, or no studio at all, above all the beginner must not lose heart if she fails to get work at the outset, and so throw away all her good training and study to become something in an office. If a student is any good at all, and has the courage to persevere, the right job will come along in the end.
It has been suggested that it is better to make a start in any sort of studio than to attempt to free-lance at the outset. But it should be mentioned that there are still some sorts of studios which one would do well to avoid altogether; and others in which one should not stay too long. The latter category includes the type which specializes in cheap work of the mass production order. In such a studio creative or original work is not allowed, far less encouraged. The artist's job is to produce the stunted, lifeless, "stock pose" type of drawing ad infinitum. Working under such conditions, the most promising youngster soon becomes artistically atrophied, incapable of the production of anything but the deadly conventional. Failing a better opening, a short spell of this sort
of work is useful as a beginning; but the ambitious artist should move on as soon as possible to a more invigorating atmosphere.
A BEGINNER'S SALARY
Salaries and scales of payment have been dealt with in another chapter, and it will only be necessary to repeat that for the first six months or a year a beginner need not expect to be offered more than ios. to L1 a week. In a sense the early period in a studio is an apprenticeship, during which service is exchanged for tuition and a nominal salary. Indeed it would definitely be better to commence work in a good studio for nothing at all than to go into a poor studio for a pound or two a week.
On the other hand it is sometimes possible to start with a small firm which is doing really good work, and be paid a good wage at once. In such a studio a bright beginner will be given interesting and responsible work at an early stage, and, if she can cope with it, her further progress will be correspondingly rapid.
HOLDING A JOB
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