What advice would I give a young artist today?
Tue, March 23, 2021 I recently watched a Bill Maher video where he talked about the issue that back in the 1990s someone had the brilliant idea that one should not just reward excellence but give everyone a trophy just for participating. In addition to this kids were told they could be anything they desired, simply by wishing it were so.
The result is we have a generation of young people who all want to be celebrities and cannot understand why they are not. Yes, one must believe in themselves and their ability to achieve success, but it takes time, often years of practice and repetition, and only then if one has something called “Talent”.
Life is a journey, and the journey means more than the destination. You don’t climb a mountain and say, “Damn this is hard work, but it will be worth it when I get to the top and see that wonderful view,” What if you took a cable-car or a helicopter to the summit. You would have the exact same view, but there would be no sense of achievement in getting there.
Likewise, you don’t say, “Damn this is hard work but when I become a star or a celebrity, then I’ll be happy.” Happiness is a choice; it does not require fame or fortune. There are poor people who are happy, and rich people who are miserable. Life is a journey, happiness is the means of travel, not the destination.
Don’t say, I am miserable because I have no friends. No, you have no friends because you are miserable. No one wants to be around miserable people. Be happy without friends, and friends will be drawn to you. If your happiness is reliant on the approval of others, you leave your self open to be controlled by others. How can you be happy without friends, well smile for a start, fake it? People will soon begin to wonder what you have to smile about.
Get in touch with your inner self. What is that? Remember when you were 5,6 or 7? The thoughts you had, was that not the same person that does the thinking now? Even though you look different in the mirror. That is your inner self. It is that which never changes throughout your entire life.
While you are at it, get in touch with Nature. For there is but one creative source, and artists are merely the vehicle through which art appears. The Native American called it “Hand Magic.” The Great Spirt guiding the artist’s hand as he made the pottery or wove a blanket. Everything in Nature is beautiful, if the artist is connected to Nature through their inner self, he or she will create beautiful art. It doesn’t matter if it is painting or sculpture, creative writing or songwriting, singing or acting. It is all art.
All art forms have a craft side. Tried and true ways of doing something. These can be learned from books, classes or even YouTube videos. Once you learn the craft, it depends on practice, repetition, and in the end Talent. Talent I believe is that connection with Nature, the Great Spirit. Some are born with it and often don’t even know it. Others have to find it, but it is there to be found.
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Reader Comments (6)
Good advice, thanks Dave.
Very well said, Dave, and timely too.
Excellent advice, something I'll share with all my friends.
A basic conundrum in business: How do you hire “talented” people? This is different from experienced applicants.
If talent is innate, how does an interviewer detect it, or test for it?
If talent can be taught, can an employer accomplish this? If so, how is that done, or is it too late, should it had been done in school? Can talent be taught, or does it develop naturally?
If the new employee does not work out, who’s at fault, how did it happen, and why was it not predictable? Can it be avoided in the future? In other words, can the employer do anything to avoid recurrence?
It is easy to hire experienced people, but even then, does talent come along with experience? Does one start with talent, then gain experience. Or can one become talented with experience, over time?
Maybe a person is attracted to something from within, not directed or guided from without.
"Talent" is actually a myth - what people attribute to some inherent superior quality that some individuals magically have is, for the most part, something that they practiced as a child when they healed better, had no responsibilities, less sense of risk, and parents watching to dive in when something DID go wrong.
The child that draws is actively learning to draw. The child that skateboards or rides a bike is not only learning to control it at the low speeds he is able to reach but also how to fall, with the smaller mass of his body leading to fewer serious injuries if "that didn't work". The child that actually practices the basics of math will get better at them through memorization of the fundamentals.
All of this is done without pressure to do the work to some acceptable level. When you remove expectations, and set up conditions for yourself to fail better, you can see that the world is truly your oyster.
But on to responding to the initial thrust of the post...
Those of my generation were brought up with this expectation that if you could not perform to some level, you were NEVER going to. There is a lot of self-defeating, self-imposed ideas of social-stratification based on a fantasy. The "participation trophy" mentality caused resentment in those who put in the work to do better, and the sham was also seen by those who did little work and still "succeeded," leaving both ends disillusioned. Teachers were also (in the experience of many that I've talked with...) in the habit of punishing entire classes for the actions of the few. Schools adopted "zero-tolerance policies" and in general the environment was one of punishing those who did well and allowing those who did poorly to succeed despite their every attempt to lash out. Division based on arbitrary classifications from on-high, lack of recognition for things done, punishment for things others did.
A lot of it is entitlement, but the root of that entitlement is the belief that they're smarter than "the game" that's being played, because that's what they were taught. The fact that such a "game" never existed outside of schools. It's very very hard to get someone to realize their entire intuitive understanding of how the world works is incorrect. But a friend helped me out of it, and I try to help others around my age and younger to break out of it.
“Misery loves company.”
Seems like being miserble works fine as long as you have tolerance for les miserables.
Yep. Generalizations such as the above being bullshit are also part of life.