What counts as “good work” in contemporary visual art practice? How do artists learn to recognize it? In a U.S. graduate art school context, work refers to art’s product, artistic activity, as well as to a future profession in the arts. My dissertation project examines the multiple meanings and evaluations of work in art training. Through participant observation in a two year Master of Fine Arts program in the visual arts, the dissertation describes the everyday work activities of art students, their initiation into professional discourses and practices, and the frameworks they and others use to evaluate and justify their work. The first part of the dissertation treats art training as a bodily and material process and examines studio art practices, especially those involved in printmaking, drawing, and papermaking. The second part treats art as a profession and explores how art students learn to become future practicing artists. This part includes a discussion of the role of the visual arts in higher education. The third part examines the practical application of values in art education through an inquiry into systems of evaluation and forms of justification in critiques, studio practice, and artists’ writings. Although much time in art school is spent talking about and evaluating work, the standards of evaluation are often elusive and contextual.