>>116287108>>116299350Richard Williams, the animation director for Who Framed Rodger Rabbit:
"I had a boyhood friend who became a bigwig in art education circles. He ran international conferences of the arts. About sixteen years ago he invited me to Amsterdam to a conference of the deans of the leading American art colleges. He knew me well enough to know I was bound to say controversial things, so I was invited as his wild card.
In my talk I found myself lamenting the lack of trained, talented artists and that I was hampered in my own studio's work because I couldn't find trained disciplined artists to hire. The applicants' portfolios were full of textures, abstract collages, scribbles, often nude photos of themselves and friends. No real drawing. I didn't realise how strongly I felt about this and as I talked I found myself nearly in tears. I haranged the the deans of the art schools for failing in their duty to provide proper skills to their students. Surprisingly, when I finished, the deans called an emergency meeting to which I was
invited. 'Look Mr. Williams,' they said, 'you're right, but we have two problems . Number one: since classical drawing was rejected years ago, we have no trained teachers who can draw or teach conventional drawing as they never learned it themselves. And number two: our mostly rich students - on whom we count for our funding - don't want to learn to draw. They would rather decorate themselves as living works of art - and that's exactly what they do.' So I said, 'Look, all I know is that I can't find people to hire or train ; but otherwise I don't know what you can do .'They said, 'Neither do we.'"
