Time was, artists honed their craft in school and by learning from the skills of masters of the day. No more, writes Laurie Fendrich. “Art education (by which I mean the education of artists for the professional contemporary art world, as opposed to the education of high-school art teachers, which is an entirely separate matter) has become a hodgepodge of attitudes, self-expression, news bulletins from hot galleries, and an almost random selection of technical skills that cannot help but leave most art students confused about their ultimate purpose as artists. This mishmash approach has been going on for so long that it amounts to an orthodoxy…”