Learning to See: Inside the World's Leading Art and Design Schools

by Keith Sawyer

Overview

A groundbreaking account of how nationally known artists and designers teach—and what students learn—in the world’s top BFA and MFA programs.

Learning to See is an engaging and profound account of how professional artists and designers create and how they teach others to do it. Keith Sawyer, a leading creativity researcher, spent over ten years interviewing a hundred professors who’ve taught in 50 different colleges, universities, and institutes. He also interviewed students to learn about the personal transformation they go through as they learn to see and think like successful creative professionals. Learning to See describes project assignments and studio class sessions in over 20 different disciplines, revealing the shared essence of art and design.

Learning to See tells the stories of the professional artists and designers who teach in BFA and MFA programs throughout the U.S., including top schools in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. These articulate and experienced educators share their insights about how to guide younger artists and designers to realize their full creative potential. In the best BFA and MFA programs, students learn to see things they couldn’t see before, and they learn to think in new ways. In Learning to See, you meet professors and students in over 20 different art and design disciplines—from painting and sculpture to graphic design and architecture. By reading what they say in their conversations and their classrooms, you learn that becoming an artist or designer is not about learning to draw or sew or weld—it is about learning to see.

This book is for anyone who wants to better understand how professional artists and designers see, think, and make.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262551649
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	04/22/2025
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Keith Sawyer is one of the world’s leading creativity researchers. He has published twenty books and over one hundred scientific articles on jazz, theater, and visual arts. His bestselling books include Group Genius and Zig Zag. Sawyer is the Morgan Distinguished Professor in Educational Innovations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part 1: What you learn
1. Process
2. Materials
3. Emergence
4. Failure
5. Seeing
Part 2: Project assignments
6. Constraints
7. Ambiguity
Part 3: The studio critique
8. Thinking
9. Dialogue
Conclusion
Notes
References

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Through intimate portraits of art and design professors, Learning to See reveals how creative breakthroughs emerge not from predetermined plans but through embracing uncertainty, engaging in dialogue with materials and peers, and developing a distinctive way of perceiving that transforms both the artist and their work.”
—Bob Mankoff, former Cartoon Editor, The New Yorker

“The ability to see is tangible and metaphorical in ways that require skill and education. Designers must see on and below the surface of what they make. Learning to See is a guide that helps the reader learn that there is more to design than meets the eye.”
—Steve Heller, Professor at the School of Visual Arts, New York; author of Design School Confidential and The Education of a Graphic Designer

“Keith Sawyer defines seeing as something which is learned through experience and example as it is taught in schools of art and design. Rich with examples and illuminating quotes from experienced teachers, his book lays out the case for seeing as a form of thinking on a higher plane.”
—Kit White, author of 101 Things to Learn in Art School

“In this deeply researched and elegantly written book, Keith Sawyer unpacks how students in America’s leading art and design schools learn to see and to think critically. Learning to See brings to the surface what art and design schools really do, and what students actually learn.”
—Ellen Winner, Senior Research Associate at Harvard’s Project Zero; author of How Art Works

“In Learning to See, renowned education scholar Keith Sawyer has shown us how professional artists and designers see and how, in turn, we should see. This book should be on the shelves of everyone who yearns to appreciate why our world is filled with amazement.”
—Gary Alan Fine, Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University; author of Talking Art