Goodbye to the garret

Will the students now displaying their work at degree shows nationwide ever make money out of it? Harriet Swain reports on efforts to teach business techniques to art students

Starving in a garret has always had limited career appeal, even for artists. But today, with the emphasis on success at work, not to mention increasing student debt and the expense of living in cities at the centre of the art world, it has become even less of a draw.

While the art remains the most important thing for every student now involved in final-year degree shows, most will also have half an eye on the commercial prospects these shows can offer. The frantic weeks beforehand are taken up not only with perfecting artwork but with identifying the key dealers, critics, collectors and curators to invite, writing press releases and honing the artist's media image.

One reason business now looms particularly large over these shows is that the prospect of making money out of art - while still alive - has become less laughable than it once was. Artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin have become highly visible examples of commercial success not too many years out of college.

Indeed it is Hirst who is blamed for starting the whole thing off more than ten years ago with Freeze, a degree show for which he and other final-year students at Goldsmiths College, London, hired a warehouse, produced a professional catalogue and collected influential critics in taxis. Since then, the interest of wealthy dealers such as Charles Saatchi, who has been known to buy entire collections, means some students really can expect a show to change their lives.

Andy Yates, dean of the school of art at Chelsea, says: "There is the impression from the media - some of it mythical - that one can do this and earn money from it. That confidence is transmitted through the students and makes it more likely for them to see fine art as a practical and vocational activity that one can actually live on."

It is not just fine art. Design students have always tended to be more career-minded anyway. Current prospects are good, with computer-related and industrial design particularly "hot" areas. Major companies sponsor particular design courses and keep a close eye on the graduates they produce. The government also recently published an encouraging study, although it was criticised by Christopher Frayling, rector of the Royal College of Art, for not referring to the crucial contribution of art and design colleges. It stated: "The creative industries are not a fringe benefit for Britain's economy - they are at the heart of it."

Student attitudes have changed too. "The students who grew up in the 1980s have a completely different attitude towards employment," says Frayling. "They see the value of the summer show as a sort of calling card; they will sit by their work, invite people who might buy their ideas. They go to market. They are much more head-screwed-on and entrepreneurial."

How colleges deal with preparing students for the business world is more problematic. The RCA used to offer first-year business studies courses involving lectures on such topics as how to set up a small business, but they "went down like a lead balloon" because they tended to happen too early in the degree. The University of Dundee had a similar experience when it included professional and business practice in its fine art course. Ronnie Forbes, Dundee's course director of drawing and painting, says: "It is not until one is at the threshold of facing reality that there is any interest in this aspect." Instead, he argues that what students need and want is information on grant applications, business loans and marketing to be available whenever they do wake up to the demands of the outside world. "There is no such thing as a simple way of turning art into business." This is why most art schools rely heavily on lecturers who are practitioners in the field speaking to students about their different experiences.

In addition, most try to integrate "professional practice" into courses in a practical way, asking students to consider what it means to be a professional artist and how they want to present themselves in the art world. The final degree show is a key component of this, with students encouraged to market their own material or work in teams to make the event a success.

A major difficulty for art schools, as for any university department, is how far a student's career, rather than academic achievement, is any of their business. Pressure to produce "commercial" work can damage student creativity. Janis Jefferies, head of textiles at Goldsmiths, says: "Our primary function here is to ensure they achieve their degrees. It is about them experiencing work and taking risks without someone coming in in their second year and buying up their show."

What the colleges can and are doing is to emphasise the value of interdisciplinary work and transferable skills such as communication and computing. It is still the case, in spite of a few high-profile exceptions, that most artists will need to do something other than art to support their work once they leave.

For links to artschool degree show sites, visit our website at: www.thesis.co.uk.

Music books, pages 25-; Film studies, pages 28-30

TURNING ART INTO COMMERCE

Mark Wells has wanted to be a motorcycle designer for as long as he can remember.

After a foundation course at Norwich School of Art and Design, he chose the University of Northumbria at Newcastle for a BA in transport design.

About to finish his final year, he has already teamed up with a fellow student and a friend who works for a motorcycle dealership with the intention of starting a business.

He is convinced he has found a gap in the market for personalising motorbikes through styling rather than performance.

While there is no placement built into the Northumbria course, he organised his own and has been in touch with potential local funders and the Prince's Trust.

He has also applied for the "designers-in-residence" scheme, which would give him use of university premises in return for helping students.

For his degree show he got a chassis from motorbike designers Ducati and redesigned one of their models. Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci and pitched within Ducati's existing range, it could catch the eye of Ducati's head of design when he visits in the autumn.

University of Northumbria: http://online.unn.ac.uk/index.htm.

Eva Tatcheva's first book has already been translated into eight languages and her second is due out in October, about the same time as an unpublished children's story by Angela Carter, for which she has done the illustrations.

Once she leaves the Royal College of Art this summer, she wants to experiment with films, animate stories for adults and perhaps teach.

"I am very enthusiastic, I know a lot, I am good at what I do and I believe I could be very useful," she says.

Born in Bulgaria in 1971, she left because she felt unable to express herself as an artist under the political regime there.

After a BA in illustration at Kingston University, she started an MA in communication art and design at the RCA in 1998, by which time she had found a publisher - Tango - for her children's book, Witch Zelda's Birthday Cake.

Bloomsbury commissioned work for the Angela Carter story Sea-Cat and Dragon King, which was only discovered after Carter's death, after seeing Tatcheva's work at Kingston.

"We are not particularly encouraged to go on a commercial path as students because commercial work can be a bit dull and safe and we are encouraged to be daring, original, experimental," Tatcheva says. "But most of the work produced is of a very high quality and people get commissioned."

Tatcheva says her second year included a business course and all RCA students were promised advice and support for two years after leaving.

The money has not been rolling in yet, but Tatcheva already has an advance from Bloomsbury and she has high hopes of the royalties.

Royal College of Art: http://www.rca.ac.uk/.