Saturday, May 10, 2014

Bryce Betterley Five Year Plan
Introduction
The future freaks me out, I struggle with what I am planning on doing next week let alone what I am doing in the next five. My five year plan does not start now, in fact it will not start until I am finished with my BFA  at Sierra Nevada College. Over the next year or so, (however long it takes for me to finish my schooling here) my most important goals will be to be there for my family, and help get myself healthy and happy. I will also be working on creating stronger, more focused pieces of work so that I can be prepared for my future after this next year.  I am definitely going to pursue grad school, and get my Masters in Fine Arts.  I would like to stick to more traditional techniques like painting, drawing and maybe stretch into the sculptural field as well. It is important for me to stay close to my family when I head off to grad school, because of this I am focusing my search for schools on the West Coast.  However my schooling will not be the only thing that I will be working on, I will also be putting my work in local art shows and trying to print and sell drawings and paintings online and in person.  In addition to trying to put my work out there, I also would like to put on an art show for charity. My family has been plagued by Parkinson's disease and I feel that it would help me mentally to try and help those who are effected by this wretched disease.  

Graduate Schools 
As a student my resources for money are pretty slim, because of this I have to choose a school this I can not simply choose a program that I like, I have to choose a school that will offer help with paying for the tuition or a student/ work program that can help me survive. I am also not sure what medium I intend to focus on. I love to paint portraits, but I also love to draw figures in strange ways. Because of these two strong passions I am pulled between two ideas, focusing on illustration or the more traditional fine arts. If I could find a school that merged this two ideas into a single program I would definitely be interested it. 
  I have two dream schools that I would love to go to, but both are pretty much impossible due to location and price. The first "wishful thinking" school would be the New York Academy of Art. I feel that this school has a very good reputation, and some prestige that goes along with it.  Since it is basically as far as I can get from home on this continent, this school is very impractical for me to attend.  The price is another reason that I would not be able learn here. The other school would be the Barcelona Academy of Art, this is pure fantasy, there a sense of romanticism I feel when I think of going to school in Europe. Along with the price and location obstructing my ability to attend these schools, I also don't feel that I am at the appropriate skill level to be accepted. This fear of me not being good enough applies to multiple schools I am interested in. 
Two schools in the Bay Area I have interest in are  the art program in the University of California, Berkley and the Academy of art San Francisco. I am fairly familiar with the Academy of Art SF because I took part in their online BFA program.  I really like a lot of their teachers and also appreciate their work. They have a very good illustration program, and a good fine arts program as well. I am not as familiar with the Berkley art program, but I had a teacher at TMCC who attended their MFA program and had nothing but good things to say about it. 
The last school I have interest in is UNR, this is somewhat of a "if all else fails" school. This last resort idea is not  because it is a bad school, but more because I would like to get out and learn somewhere besides Nevada. 

Shows/Grants
With art shows I feel that it is more about what is offered to me, and what I am doing at the time. In Reno it is very hard for me to get shows, mostly because a lot of the venues are more interested in putting pretty girls or close friends in their shows. I have had multiple shows at various Bars in Reno, but there is only so much professionalism that can come with that. I definitely want to branch out and try and get my art in more venues, not just at places that focus on trying to get popular people so that they can sell more drinks, but at places that want to get a better quality of art work at their venues. For this to happen I believe that I need to raise the level of my work. 
Raising the level of my art work also applies for me to receive grants. I admit that I am not very familiar with the grant system, but it is something that I am trying to learn more about and find out what opportunities there are for me as an artist.

Employment

This is definitely one of the trickiest parts of my five year plan. I am not quite sure what I want to do with my art past getting it out there. I want to help people with my art, whether that is having them like what I am doing, or using my art to help them individually. I also have been really interested in creating characters and stories for them to act out. Lately I have been intoxicated with the idea of writing children's stories and illustrating them, but I will definitely need to take more creative writing classes to help me achieve these goals. I am also very interested in teaching, this is perfect fit for me trying to use my art to help people.