Initiate your career change by building your own history as a working artist. Collect your own tricks of the trade, and share those experiences with your students. Inhabiting both roles as artist and teacher will enrich your art students beyond measure.

Before you apply to graduate school for fine arts, you have to honestly ask yourself what your long-term goals are. It may seem premature to think that far ahead, but it's important to think through and answer these questions before you leap into applying to graduate schools.

With none of the rigor of 19th century training, university art departments and art schools roll out thousands of wannabe artists annually in what must be one of the greatest educational scams ever perpetrated. At least the 19th century Beaux Arts painters were trained to make a living of it.