Sep 012011
Is your doubt
Art Identity
Luckily for us all, you couldn’t loose your art identity if you tried. But you still have to find it – a well engineered game for sure.
Personally I look at it something like this:
Picture a magnifying glass outdoors on a sunny day. At one end is the sun. Much closer is the magnifying lens. It can focus the sunlight down to a very nearby burning spot.
The sun represents the cosmos. The lens represents your art. That burning point is your soul/spirit/{whatever the proper word}. The thing which the lens is focused onto is your unique personal artistic vision.
Now for the fun part: Just as the lens focuses the sun into you in one direction – it also focuses your soul outward to the sun in the other direction.
Where does your art come from as you mature? It wells up from a kind of spring you get to dig into yourself. When you start, your little trickle of art spirit is very near the surface and the cares of the world rain down and fill it with ego mud. This is a tricky time, because no one has an easier time fooling us than we ourselves do. Your ego could fool you about who you are and what you’re capable of doing.
So you keep on digging, a constant and imperfect practice, over and over – sometimes you fall back a bit, but not to worry, over the long haul you make good progress. That’s in the nature of practice and it’s human nature. Therefore, you get deeper and the flow gets cleaner and purer and eventually your authentic unique nature flows out into your work. Of course it’s not all internal. As you practice and your work gets purer, it will communicate better to others, as well as to you.
You won’t ever be finished, it’s a process, not an event. And yes, it’s a spiritual journey – one of many versions of the hero’s quest.
_jim coe
Dec 102009
Do you believe in ‘talent’?
The word ‘talent’ has several dictionary definitions. For instance the top 3 at dictionary.com are
- A special natural ability or aptitude: “A talent for drawing.”
- A capacity for achievement or success; ability: “Young men of talent.”
- A talented person: “The cast includes many of the theater’s major talents.”
That first one is where I disagree most. That is, if ‘talent’ means some lucky few are blessed at birth with abilities which the rest will never have.
I believe that anyone, who is not in some way handicapped, can create good visual art – no ‘talent’ required.
Are some people especially good at it? Sure, but is that from nature or nurture? Or both?
I doubt they’ll ever find a gene that’s coded for art skills. But I don’t doubt that the best visual artists have for years nurtured their personal vision, their ability to observe keenly, their design sense and their understanding of visual communication principles.
When I write of “handicaps”, that includes all the self-doubt, shame and guilt that drag so many down. And authorities (including parents) have usually done their best to handicap or closely channel creativity, with its close ties to individuality and “unsupervised thinking”.
Highly creative people with critical thinking skills and a strong streak of individuality are hard to control. Control is a big concern for authorities of all kinds. No wonder so many people feel they are untalented and uncreative.
I’d love to read what you believe about talent in art…
_jim coe
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