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Not sure how to answer!
I noticed these were posted in 2004.
I'm one of those oddballs who did not have a formal art education. However, I really didn't feel that I could check any one of the choices in the poll. At the time that I went to college, realism was not encouraged, and I didn't know of any art schools that taught traditional methods except for one very good school that did not offer a degree program. I very much wanted to go further academically and I got into a very good college, so I went. While I was there, I took a wonderful drawing class and a painting class, but I majored in Art History and was blissfully happy in academia. When I graduated, I guess I could have gone to PAFA, but I didn't think of it. Instead I got a Masters in Education, which so far has turned out to be useless, and went right into painting portraits and landscapes while working in various jobs on the side.
I'm not against art education at all. I think I would have learned a lot of things faster. On the other hand, I've always been a self-starter, and I tend to move from one thing to another, then back again, because it keeps me interested. I think would have found drawing only from plaster casts for months very stultifying. I can see it's good discipline, and it would probably be good for me--but, to be realistic, one or two at a time would be all I could stand.
On the "down" side, I'm dumb at artspeak. And I don't get invited to the PAFA alumni shows because I'm not an alum. Sigh! A lot of my friends are alums and they know all these other artists who went there, while I'm just beginning to get to know some of them. Another more disturbing negative is that, in the traditional realist movement, I see a definite bias against artists who were not formally trained or have not at least "studied" with a "master." I don't appreciate the prejudiced way in which some people see me and my work.
On the "up" side, I draw and paint from life, I read about art, look at art, talk to artists, and basically LIVE ART. It's a lifelong learning process, and I set myself a pretty rigorous course. Many of my friends who went to art school keep telling me I didn't miss a thing, that they learned most of what they know after they graduated from art school and started really painting. Instead of being trained according to some "school," I was free to develop my own style from the beginning by learning from the painters whose styles I admired.
For me, not getting formal training has, I think, been mostly positive. I'm not saying it would work for someone else, but it has for me.
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