Hello Internet,

I began preparing this column to invite you to my upcoming virtual artist hangout, but it morphed into exploring reminders of how to write an essay. Prosaic investigation. Poetic reward. I want to relax with a fun column to worry about for my millions tens of readers.

“I just want an art column,” I tell Peri, the publisher, over the phone.

I’ve been working at the Art Student League of New York. A couple years ago, I was on their website looking for plein-air painting classes and ended up with a job. Look. This place is unreal. It all escalated so quickly! Before I knew it, I was live-painting an abstract at the MoMA and drawing cadavers at the Weill Cornell anatomy lab; attending talks with Disney illustrators, gallery curators and Leo Castelli’s artists. There’s no place like it. Its legacy is intoxicating.

The League has been key to the development of many artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthahler, Norman Rockwell, Alexander Calder, Robert Henri, Man Ray, Deb Kass, Will Eisner, Ai Weiwei, Donald Judd, Faith Ringold, Louise Bourgeois…all the way up to TikTok’s art star Devon Rodriguez, who spent six months at the League mastering his accuracy and speed. 

I want to tell more people about the League.

Because guess what? 

For the first time ever, you don’t have to drag your body down to 57th Street to study at this world-famous art school in the heart of Manhattan. You can take their live classes online — no application required — which is so awesome for reinvigorating your studio practice, taking yourself seriously, developing a new body of work, and growing your art community.

Who wants to hang out with me Nov 30 or Dec 3 to talk about the League?  Please sign up through either of these links for the date that suits you best and I promise we will have fun — and we can talk about your work, too. 

All the best,

Eva

In this weekly column, NYC artist Eva Avenue shares the things she likes while looking at the state of the world through art in less than 400 words.