Art school is built on the mythology of endless stamina—a culture that mistakes exhaustion for rigor and self-destruction for discipline. For chronically ill or disabled students, that mythology isn’t just alienating; it’s exclusionary. The systems of art education—its spaces, schedules, and values—were designed for bodies that don’t falter. I feel that the expectation of constant productivity in art school exposes how little creative institutions understand accessibility. The “rigor” they worship is narrow, able-bodied, and unsustainable. You’d think burnout is a Tyler admissions requirement.
Chronic illness reveals what real rigor actually looks like: adaptation, resilience, and perseverance in the face of limits. Art school romanticizes exhaustion and sickliness but not real illness. Chronic illness creates unavoidable limitations: fatigue, brain fog, pain, fainting, irregular attendance. In a culture that fetishizes overwork, rest looks like weakness. Quite frankly, this ideal should’ve died with Warhol.
As an art education major, I’m trained to analyze pedagogy and institutional design, so I can see both the student experience and the system that produces it.
Background context
Historically, “the artist” is an endurance symbol that embodies the sleepless, underfed, and obsessed. The art historical canon is littered with romantic myths—Van Gogh’s ear, Pollock’s drinking, Basquiat’s heroin, and the general mad genius. The coffee and cigarettes chic has disguised itself under Alanis and Geekbars. Now, academic institutions seem to have rebranded it as commitment to the process, but to me, it’s no different than the grindset culture that art school claims to be the antithesis of.
The word rigor gets thrown around constantly but never defined. I’ve started to think it’s an old Italian word for “unpaid overtime.” Why is rigor always physical and never intellectual or ethical? In critiques, students are rewarded for pushing through pain or stress—not for managing themselves sustainably. This is irresponsible on behalf of educators. They are creating ticking time bombs rather than well-adjusted and equipped adults in their field.
I believe much of this stems from professors with a warped sense of accountability who feel the need to perpetuate the abusive environment they came up in rather than change for the better. I see this in syllabus language like “constant studio presence expected” and that same professor not honoring my modified attendance accommodation. This culture of glorified exhaustion predates me by making me constantly plead my case. The disability office told me to advocate for myself, but I asked, and they don’t offer minors in diplomacy.
It makes me wonder why do the departments that train teachers understand equity better than the ones that train artists? In my education courses, we’re taught to differentiate instruction, accommodate diverse learners, and design accessible classrooms—yet in the studios next door, those ideas vanish. Art education emphasizes inclusion on paper, but fine arts pedagogy still models hierarchy and competition.
Art school as physical demand
Artmaking demands stamina I don’t have: standing for hours, moving heavy materials, fumes, heat, light, noise, and manual labor. This side to inaccessibility is directly tied to the invisibility of chronic illness. Not to mention, the architecture of art buildings is riddled with literal barriers. My illness is unpredictable, but the small, slow, full elevator? She’s consistent. There’s often no seating, no rest space, and not enough ventilation. For disabled students, participation often means overcompensation/overexertion. The design of the building reveals the design of the institution—beauty valued over bodies. If art celebrates the human form, why does art education ignore the human body?
In art education theory, we talk about scaffolding. In real life, it’s the thing blocking the accessible entrance. I can already see how I’d need to redesign studio spaces for future students—more places to sit, better airflow, quieter tools. Learning how to make art in inaccessible spaces means I’ll never replicate that structure when I teach. I can see the pipeline problem forming from day one.
The economics of suffering
Like everything in life, disability immediately ties back to class and privilege. Only students with safety nets can afford to romanticize the grind. There are hidden costs of illness: medication, rest time, lost wages, transportation, special food, clothing, accessories, and energy. The student who can live in the studio likely doesn’t have to work a job or recover from flare-ups or exercise hangovers. The system equates free time with dedication, punishing those who have obligations. This seems to mirror capitalism within art school, demonstrating in how value is tied to output. I believe that accessibility isn’t about giving certain students advantages—it’s about recognizing different economies of energy.
As future teachers, we talk about Maslow before Bloom—meeting basic needs before expecting creative output. But that logic stops at the college door. The art-school model assumes students have unlimited time and healthy bodies.
What accessible looks like to me
I feel that accessibility should be seen as a creative philosophy, not a compliance checklist. Institutions treat accessibility as a legal formality, not an artistic value or something vital to students. In my classroom, I want to redefine “rigor” as: Adaptation: finding alternate materials, pacing, or techniques. Reflection: knowing when to stop. Resourcefulness: building around constraints.
As a future educator, I see these adaptations as curriculum design—universal design applied to creativity. The best teachers are artists who learned to work within constraint; that’s the skill art school should be teaching. If accessibility were part of studio pedagogy, every student would learn flexibility—not just the disabled ones.
I could ramble for days, but my biggest suggested changes would be flexible critique structures; universal design in studio spaces; and a curriculum acknowledging fatigue, care, and recovery as creative acts. I want to remain clear that illness doesn’t make you exceptional, and it’s not an interruption to art school; it just makes the institution’s design visible. As someone who will soon design lesson plans, I’m realizing art school teaches what not to do. That knowledge is valuable—but it shouldn’t require this much pain to earn. If teacher training adopted the same standards as studio training, we’d be violating every principle of inclusive education we preach. Maybe the first thing that needs a redesign isn’t the studio—it’s the syllabus.
In writing this, it pains me to realize that I’m spending four years learning how to teach self-expression in a place that punishes mine for being inconvenient. My goal in all of this is redefinition, not resolution. That redefinition to me means that rigor is not about who suffers the most; it’s about who sustains their practice despite their odds. True rigor isn’t the absence of rest; it’s the courage to make meaning anyway. Maybe the real assignment of art education is redesigning the system that taught us what art ‘should’ look like. Art school may not be built for disabled students, but disabled students reveal how fragile art school actually is.
I’m not lazy. I don’t want to be a scolding finger. I’m not trying to be a tragic tale or, or inspiration porn. I’m just trying to make work that exists within the body I have. My hope as a teacher is that no student is ever forced to earn credibility through pain.