● Program Overview

Independent Study with Nato Thompson

This isn't career management — it's the sustained, serious work of building a practice that lasts. This masterclass offers rigorous critique, individualized mentorship, and a tight-knit cohort of committed artists grappling honestly with the realities of creative life: time, money, exhaustion, and what it means to keep making work anyway. Additional one-on-one sessions with Nato give you direct, substantive dialogue about your work that most artists rarely get.

● Program Overview

What You’ll Learn

  • How to identify what is essential in your work

  • How to speak about your work with clarity and specificity

  • How to work through uncertainty without closing it down

  • How to recognize patterns across your practice

  • How to stay committed through doubt and fatigue

  • How to engage in rigorous critique

Enroll Now

Next Cohort
Starts June 1

Program Structure

This five-month program meets twice a month and moves between critique sessions, group discussion, and focused reflection on participants’ work. Sessions center on sustained engagement with each artist’s practice, creating space for direct feedback, dialogue, and ongoing development.

Optional one-on-one sessions with Nato Thompson offer additional time for individualized mentorship.

The program is limited to 12 participants to support a close, consistent working group.

● Program Overview

Frequently Asked Questions

  • TAAS is for artists, curators, makers, and doers at every stage of their artistic life. Many of our members already have undergraduate or graduate art degrees. We believe strongly that this mixed-level experience is an incredible opportunity.

  • The uniqueness of TAAS is that our instructors are often working artists and curators with complex schedules, therefore you’ll see amazing artists come, go and return from quarter to quarter.

  • TAAS is not accredited — intentionally. We believe the most valuable art education happens in dialogue with working artists and curators, not through institutional checkboxes.

  • TAAS operates on Zoom embedded in a networking software that operates as our digital campus. The platform includes a variety of messaging options, profile pages for artists to represent themselves and their work, and clubs in which they can host break-out sessions outside of classes.

  • The Alternative Art School uses Mighty Networks as our online campus and platform. This media-based learning environment allows artists to collaborate, upload their work, and share across vast distances.

  • TAAS is an online school and students need access to a dependable wifi network and a desktop or laptop computer with a working webcam and microphone. Some students find Direct Ethernet cables helpful to boost connectivity if their wifi networks are unstable.

  • While TAAS is not a non-profit, we have a fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, that accepts donations on our behalf and offers a tax-deduction for all donations. We certainly encourage those with means and a big heart to support this initiative (see “Support” tab to donate.)