Where Do Creativity and Talent Come From?
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I used to be the kind of person (“used to” as in all of my life until recently) who believed talent (natural born talent) was pretty much a false concept. After all, I’m an accomplished and capable illustrator, but I can remember the time when I could not draw at all and made the same renderings that all kids made in early childhood: crayon yellow sun in the upper corner, boxy house, toilet paper tube shape elm with a green cloud of a tree top. My talent didn’t come “naturally” although I had an extraordinary focus and aptitude for spatial things, and representational constructions, just no appreciable ability.
While there are examples of people who have exhibited freakish artistic abilities, like the famous example of Mozart, -let’s be honest, without his father driving him, he would have grown up to do parlour tricks for the court and been something more akin to his era’s “Gallagher” or “Carrot Top.” His laziness and lack of drive in early life was as legendary as his ability to play counterpoint to himself on two separate pianos while blindfolded. Hard work made him into the Mozart that created the work we remember.
This is of course central to the nature versus nurture conundrum that is at the core of most interviews Charlie Rose conducts with artists, musicians and entertainers on PBS.
This question his been on my mind lately because I recently taught a workshop with a colleague from World War 3 Illustrated named Ethan Heitner at this year’s Allied Media Conference in Detroit at Wayne State University. I opened by telling the crowded (thank God) room that we could not teach them to draw or be artists in the time allotted, only furnish them with the tools to funnel their talent, culminating in a narrative or comic book. After the workshop was over I thought “When have I ever had enough time with a student to teach them how to be artists?… Is such a thing possible?”
From my perspective as I look at what made me draw pictures, then write stories, then comics, then animation, and I have to consider the uncomfortable truth that while I may have appeared to have driven myself to do these things, it may not have been a question of my will at all. The reason I say this is because I have taught students who worked and put in far more time and sweat than I ever have at their age and their results were frankly not in scale within their efforts.
As I enter further into my 40s, I am creating more work than ever, whereas many, if not most of my contemporaries at Cooper Union, a notoriously competitive art college in New York, are no longer artists at all. Some of these folks were among the most “talented” people I have ever known, but by our year of graduation there was a savage line of demarcation, -those who were still artists, and those who looked like they were cut out for a life as academics and critics. Maybe they can still draw and paint, but as Sartre had astutely and repeatedly told us all in the 20th century: “you are what you do, not what you say you are.”
I guess what I’m thinking about tonight as the local news comes on is whether there is such a thing as free will, or are we a representatives of individual finite consciousnesses, all with finite sets of possible responses to the environment and stimulus that we are fortunate or unfortunate to be born into? No believable answer exists for now, and I’ve given myself a headache.
“My head aches, therefore I am.” Is probably what Descartes had meant to say.
Now if only I could learn how to play the guitar…
-SJ
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SJ,
Possibly one could expand creativity into so many other places. My youngest is a wizard with food. Herbs,spices,blending tastes and textures. We couldn’t afford cooking school but I scraped some $ together for college courses which she hated and sucked at.
Yet she can produce better tasting food than trained chefs, her only weakness being lack of speed in comparison.
Sadly her approach to dishwashing rivals her approach to schoolwork.
Gwen, thanks for that much needed perspective. I suppose there’s just an elemnet of frustration I’m trying to help others avoid, but that’s just impossible.
You make a good point about loving your work, whatever it may be.
-SJ
Personally, I think Descartes’ principles are flawed… for me it is “I am inspired to think, therefore I am”… enjoyed your post SJ. I’ve got to tell you, I always knew I wanted to write, but I couldn’t find the ‘niche’ … I wrote for different pubs and worked on two newspapers’ and I still did not find what I was looking for. I was 32 when I did find my personal pathway (as it were) and I’ve been around people considered ‘artists’ of some kind / variety since I was a kid. YOu have to ‘want’ it. Staying true to your dreams to draw, to act, to sing, to be a rocket scientist, you have to stick with it. Whether it’s education, experience, timing… you have to carry it in your heart. I know lots of folks who do and just make a living… and some who are entirely successful who make loads of $. Following the different drummer that makes the beat for you is the constant. I’ve known some who ‘had a gift’ and I’ll say they don’t always seem so immersed as those who ‘have a commitment’ to art… you know? The idea of ‘having to survive’ and give up a dream for survival fiscally…. it does separate those who do from the those who don’t.
I think you must absolutely love what you do.
I’ve tried to walk away from what I create… what I do. It didn’t work. Even when I tried to live as someone who just walked into corporate America on a daily basis… and make a good, solid living… I nearly choked to death on my hypocrisy. And I wandered through my own mind. I simply couldn’t live without doing what I do. Good or bad or indifferent. I love what I do. I think that is what makes an artist… and artists raise children, teach school, make the water plant run, fly passenger planes, protect and serve a community, elect politicians, write books or plays or film treatments, artists… they do what they do because they love it and are dedicated to it.
Just what I’ve noticed. Oh, and bunches of folks who paint.
Fascinating piece SJ – It reminded me of a favorite book of mine by James Hillman A Soul’s Code – A Search For Character And Calling. In it Hillman writes of very young children being drawn to what, one day, they will excel at. A young boy who badgered his parents to buy him a violin, he wanted to play the violin badly. They bought him a violin to fit his tiny frame, he refused to play it and demanded a “proper” violin. He got one, and grew up to be a master violinist, Yehudi Menuhin. He had to learn and practice just like everyone, no one is born doing anything, but something inside led him down the path, before he had the power of reason and choice.
The old saying practice makes perfect for the most part is probably true, but if your heart and soul is not in a project, practice away, you will never be close to perfect.
Thanks Holte, I’ll look that book up, sounds perfect. As I was remarking to Mother Hen above, I’m just scratching my head over how to proceed. I thought for the most part a lot of this philosophical tail chasing was over for me, but apparently not. As I find myself mentoring more and more artists at various career points and others who are true novices testing the waters, I don’t want to be one of those jerks who just answers questions with other questions if you know what I mean.
-SJ
Mother Hen
Just making conversation, My youngest Son is an Artist. Just graduated from Sage college in Albany. MFA. The reason I mention it, perhaps you would like to see some of his stuff.
We’d like to see some of your drawings. My goal is to set up a studio for his work to be displayed.As a matter of fact other Artist too. Also where we can pursue music.
We get our talent from genes and inspiration. I like levi’s..
Do you know what a Henweights is……7.25 if your lucky…
Old man humor…….
The reason I wish I’d gone to art school is that they challenge you to produce. I have bursts of creativity, but often I am tormented with the artistic equivalent of “writers block”. Commercially working forces one to produce, but also to hate the process. I have tried to stay in love with the process itself, so I save it for when it can be applied with love, not to make a buck.
I guess I have a fickle muse.
I make no claim to be an artist any longer, as Sartre is quite right. I could say I am an artist, because I can draw well, have an eye for design, and have painted some things and had my graphics made into shirts and cards. But as for feeling the art every day, no. I certainly am no longer an artist as art is rarely something I “do” any more.
I never had any schooling in “how to draw”, but was given materials and encouragement by my mother. I have watched and tutored students who put in a lot of effort, but can’t seem to progress beyond what I would consider a rudimentary grade school level.
Much of where “talent” lies is not in training the hand, but in having “the eye” and an imagination. I’ve seen fantastic results from merely “training the hand”, but these works lack originality and emotion- being more along the lines of a craft than true art. When a person has the imagination, the eye, AND the hand, then you see masterful work.
I have found that the best compliment I have ever received as an artist was, “You (or your work) makes me want to draw/paint/do art”
As an inspiration, I am a success.
You know Morgan, I’d call that art. Just saying…
Very true MH.
I wish I knew or had more insight into why and how we do the things we do as creative people. I get asked to speak and teach more and more as the years wear on and the truth is, I’m just not sure I know what I’m talking about anymore. I think you can be a crappy sculpture teacher and your students will get over it, but drawing teachers are for painters and illustrators, what English and grammar teachers are to writers.
Chalk this piece up to an existential crisis, and not much more. Thanks for your considered response MH.
-SJ