For a year after I reviewed his 2020 exhibition at the Painting Center, I had occasional but intense interactions with Ophir Agassi. One of them was about the possibility of starting a modernist atelier, something that would capture the better parts of the contemporary traditionalist atelier revival, but deal with serious modernist concerns. Since I was in Massachusetts and he was in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t clear how we’d work out a collaboration, so we tabled it for future conversations.
Those future conversations never came to pass. Ophir died in January 2022. By then I had lost the studio where I received private students, and to say that I had become embittered about the prospects of art criticism would be understating things. We moved to agricultural New Hampshire a couple of months later, where I at least could have a studio if not students or an urban art scene to cover.
Strangely, at least to me, my editors continued to get in touch. Subsequently, so did students, to re-start in-person instruction. And while only a few years ago online art classes seemed ersatz and inadequate, the vaunted necessity of online learning during the pandemic reset expectations around them regarding art. Older and more experienced artists have become interested in polishing skills and receiving feedback. Too, New Hampshire has a rich ecosystem of homeschoolers who are interested in working independently with instructors.
To meet these needs I have established the School of Shape and Form. It’s starting small, but I’ve known for ten years that the legacy model of art school is obsolete and having my own school will allow me to develop the new one. I’m sad that Ophir couldn’t be involved. I invoke his enormous spirit and hope that he smiles upon this effort.
If you’re interested in a class, please reach out.
Best of luck Franklin- you seem like a good fit to do some teaching at this point, and the need for quality art education is perennial. It's rarely taken seriously by any institution not specifically dedicated to art and design, and that includes both expensive private schools and well-funded public ones too. My son went to a Montessori school that was advanced in the way it taught I was continually amazed that education could be THAT effective. That is, all except for Art, which because Maria Montessori didn't specifically design a curriculum for the subject, fell back to the same "curriculum" students have been getting in Art classes since forever: minimal instruction, no defined standards, no feedback, and not much more than "recess with paints or clay."
It was something of a revelation for me when I realized that, though the average student will never be pursuing a profession as a writer, nor use advanced mathematics as an adult, both subjects are treated like "writers and mathematicians" are the only things schools will be producing! Art on the other hand is seen as something only worthy of students that are obviously destined to be future artists/creatives (which is to say that with such a tiny number why bother putting much into it at all?). Any efforts to correct this deficiency are certainly to be welcomed!