I had always vowed that I would never want to inflict on anyone the pressure I felt my teachers did when I was taking my A-level in Art, that I would never want to train to be an Art teacher.
This is partly because I felt that it reduced the creative process to a matter of ticking boxes, rather than allowing you to be experimental. Also, I feel that by being directly involved in the industry rather than a removed observer, I'm of more use to other people and can better fulfill my own creative potential.
One thing I remain passionate about is learning: I love learning and I hope to enthuse those around me to be proactive and follow the drum beat that fits closest to the one beating inside them.
One thing I have noted in my own studies of Fine Art is that a lot of the time you can feel like a floating island in this massive ocean - where do you begin? How do you write proposals? What happens if the things you're interested in don't neatly fit into the arts discipline, but cross over into different fields? I think that these are all very important questions which are often largely discounted in mainstream education in favour of moulding you into the institutional cast.
Finally, Arts Quest is a very good resource for anyone looking at pursing a career in the arts:
