The Problem with Barnstone, Overview

Myron Barnstone runs a private art school called The Barnstone Studios, in Coplay, Pennsylvania, which is outside of Allentown.

This series of essays is intended to shed some light on the reality underlying Myron Barnstone's school and his teachings. I think that Barnstone is subject to both unfair criticism, and unfair praise.  Though the comments in what follows are mostly critical, I would like to recognize at the outset that there is a core set of ideas that Barnstone teaches that I have found very provocative, interesting, and even useful. However, I don't believe that the value of these teachings justifies the negative aspects.

Normally, one does not write multiple essays to analyze and criticize someone that one disagrees with. This is especially true in art, where poor teaching seems to be the rule. Why not just move on then, and forget about it? The reason is this... that Barnstone has taken upon himself the image of a kind-of latter day Renaissance Master, who defies the ignorant contemporary art scene, and trains would-be artists in the true knowledge of what real art is. Or something like that. There are many ways to express the same idea, many of which are pinned to his studio walls in the form of newspaper clippings, where the reporter gushes over how ingenius his school is.

Barnstone revels in this massive ego trip, and self promotes it shamelessly.


Some patience is required in what follows. The negatives aspects of Barnstone's teachings are not necessarily obvious. It took my quite a while to put together this critical overview.

I feel qualified to make critical judgments for two reasons. First, I attended 3 of his of his courses. I attended his basic drawing course twice (as is recommended) and his color course. Secondly, I have quite a bit of art education under my belt. I went to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as a full time student for 2+ years, and also had received an associates degree in art from Montgomery County Community College. So I had a lot of studio instruction under my belt, as well as a lot of art history and theory.

I found out about Barnstone's school when I was casting about for an alternative to the art education I was receiving. I think I first heard about him via a reference in Juliette Aristedes book Classical Drawing Atelier. Aristedes had attended the Pennsylvania Academy (where I had heard her name mentioned), and had studied with Barnstone as a teenager.

What once looked like an interesting studio school with a gruff but likable old timer at the helm, has revealed itself to be more of an art copying factory, with a miserable cuss spending his last days on earth being pissed about how lame everyone and everything is. His occasional expressions of admiration are reserved for either unassailable master artists of the past (with whom he is in some kind of spiritual union), or else those artists of today that he has trained personally, and who use his methods.  

Every question you ask him is either cut off before it ends, or else is misunderstood by him... as he desperately seeks to superimpose some pre-ordained answer he has long since memorized. In either case, the answer more than likely misses the point of the question (which he didn't listen to anyway), and the tone he takes in answering it… directing his answer to the room, not to the one who asked the question… serves as a mocking reminder of how you know nothing. The bravado contained in that moment would be thrilling if he were an were a bullfighter, or operatic tenor, unleashing a crecendo of emotional turmoil in song. But seeing the so called teacher there, beating the question into submission for the pure thrill of being a know it all… the pure, naked ego defensiveness is sad. 

He has erected and maintained a useful art school far from the clutches of the evil modern art world. But apparently the effort to do so has turned him mad, like the evil scientist in the movies, who turns his powers to destruction because of some past injustice that an "ignorant society" had perpetrated against him. Instead of being a steady mentor, who disseminates his wisdom with a calm hand… he has become a bully, to whom anyone who does not toe his line (to the letter) represents an infidel in his midst. 

The content of what he teaches, and his methods, are in stark contrast to the modern art school. He is strict, where they are lax. He explains the ideas, where they are unconcerned with conceptual content.  He demonstrates what he explains, where they only occasionally demonstrate without much explanation. He has structured home work, and a plan to build knowledge over time... where they have only 14 weeks of sitting in a studio with the occasional pointer or two whispered in your ear as your plug away at the art.  

But, the power of all that he has arranged there seems to disintegrate due to a series of corrosive attitudes that aren't immediately apparent. The number one problematic attitude is that, though he strives to explain the idea of things, in actual practice, he doesn't want you to "understand" what you do so much as he simply wants you to do what he told you to do.  

 The presumption is that by doing what you are told… that is, by doing specific exercises, in very particular ways, in a specific order… that you will come to understand the nature of the art problem that those very exercises are designed to teach. In union with his explanations, this is generally true. His system of doing things does indeed cause you to understand some fundamental ideas.

 The problem arises when you consider that he wants you to do it exactly one way. In his mind, it is the right way… and being the right way, why would you want to do it any other way than that. But in practice, the energy required to do something exactly as you are told is so complete, that it seems to leave no room for your mind to actively think about what you are doing. Absolute doing in this way makes you reject your own mind, in favor of the requirements that another mind has given you. This kind of annihilation… the shutting off of my active mind in favor of doing what I am told to do… I just can’t do it.

In Barnstone’s view, the doing is the end in itself. In my world, the comprehension of what you are doing is the most important thing. Of course, you can’t comprehend what you haven’t done… so the doing is needed. But I want to first comprehend the thing in a general way, so that I have a conceptual grasp of the idea. This allows me to connect it to the broad base of experience and knowledge I have. Once I have that comprehension, I can decide for myself if I need to push myself to a more exacting execution of technique. But I do not presume that some exacting execution is my goal.

 Barnstone’s approach makes exacting execution the goal. You are not required (nor are you encouraged) to form ideas along the way. All he wants if for your homework to look exactly like the homeworks of former Barnstone Champions that he has pinned to the back of the room, or that he shows in his slides.

 As an example of the mindless I give you the following scenario… two weeks ago in class I asked that young guy named Sam a question. I asked him what Barnstone meant by a certain procedure of mixing. Sam looked at me funny, as if he didn’t even understand my question (which was clear enough I think). He tells me that I can watch him if I want. So I said to him… “In other words, you don’t have an explanation”.  Then I told him that I could watch him, but still not understand what was going on. In my mind, just watching an action doesn’t explain the reason for the action, and certainly doesn’t connect the action to any broader picture. He just looked at me with a scared expression and said… “I can only do what I was trained to do”.  To unwittingly express your epitaph at such a young age is sad. He can only do what he was trained to do.

But in Barnstones view, that’s what art is. It is to be well trained in the practices of making certain paintings in a certain way… his way.. the Barnstone way. Although the lectures contain plenty of explanation of the concept of the things, he demands an absolutism that is inconsistent with understanding. For all of his talk of ideas, I believe that his school reduces to rote training, an emphasis on technique, and thereby locks the minds of his disciples into a rigid way of thinking. Their way of thinking allows them to dutifully learn and execute a collection of techniques that will make correct and reasonable pictures. But at what cost? When your mind is taken out of the equation, you aren’t even a human being anymore, let alone an artist.