Written by Golem Radio
on December 11, 2007

On merit: a clarion call for honest aesthetics

America’s Next Top Model contestant Bianca Golden this week discussed the ways in which losing the America’s Next Top Model contest might ultimately make her a better model. Better model, I thought, Isn’t 95% of your job just flaunting the gifts God gave you? What do you actually have to do?

A lot of others reacted the same way to her quote, no doubt. We don’t think much of Beauty as a talent. Just as we tend to think of physical strength as primitive. Strength and beauty are both talents, though. Gifts we are born with that we have no choice in. As an appreciator of art, I see no reason to minimize any talent if it can be applied to evoking emotion and inspiration, that is, to Art. Like the puppeteer in Being John Malkovich whose talent found no audience until he dumped it inside the famous actor, it’s silly the way we denigrate any skill so long as it resonates.

It’s not true that a beautiful model, innovating scientist, record-breaking athlete or successful artist doesn’t work hard.

That said, you can’t be Claude Monet, Max Planck, Walter Payton or Christy Turlington without a lot of luck on the day you’re born.

The truth is, all talent requires refinement to succeed in art or craft. Bianca Golden has to do a great deal more than we like to admit, because physical beauty is one of those talents we resent. That said, there’s no question that she’d never even be considered for a show like that if she hadn’t been born with the virtue of great beauty, no matter how much refining she did. She can enhance and cultivate her beauty, but, at the end of the day, she’s stuck with it whether she does any work or not.

In an Op-Ed in the Daily News yesterday, Jill Porter wrote that no one would have cared much about Philadelphia’s grifter, Jocelyn Kirsch, if she hadn’t been so pretty and curvy. I don’t buy it. I think people were intrigued both because she appeared to not only be ethically unencumbered from ill-getting the status we all crave, but also able to bring an otherwise good kid down with her.

That said, Porter cites studies on the advantages that accrue the attractive, and, like so many commentators before her, seems to opine that it’s so very unfair. Here, at least, is a case where a pretty girl is suffering by dint of excess attention for her looks. Finally, right? It’s bogus resentment, though.

We might as well resent kids with big IQs and star athletes and virtuoso musicians. I mean, they were born with it, too.

The truth is, most of the hardworking people we admire in this world succeed primarily on virtues they were born with whether they want them or not. You can enhance your brain power with study, but you have to be born smart to rock the Chem Lab.

You can practice your ass off to get from good to great, but if you aren’t born with the lungs and legs you’ll never be a great athlete.

You can apprentice with the very best, but all great builders know that there’s a point at which the blueprints break down and you’ve just got to feel your way through a project.

You’ve got that feeling or you don’t.

I can break this down more clearly still, with a skill we all understand and most of us fear: Drawing.

There are two types of ex-kids in this world: the ones that loved to draw and the ones that learned to hate it (because they didn’t draw as well as the ones who love it). After reading and sports, I remember drawing as the talent that demonstrably engendered feelings of inadequacy among students in my elementary school. Remember how frustrated you got when you just couldn’t make anything look right? Or, if you were the type of kid who liked to draw, how frustrated the kid sitting next to you got when you could and he couldn’t?

Since I am a person who’s comfortable with drawing, I can cut this point a little more finely. The more drawing I did and the more I looked at other people’s drawings, I realized something profound: no matter how good a draughtsman gets, we all draw the same way we always have. An essential me is in every drawing I do. I have drawings going way back. I can see it in every one. No matter how much someone cultivates their talent, drawing still has the draughtsman’s signature in his lines.

Take some of my favorite artists in this world, Dean Haspiel, John Romita, Jr., Lewis Trondheim and Tim Sale. They all draw. They have all come a long way in their art. I’ve watched this, particularly with Haspiel. I became a fan of his in the early days, when he just started to break through in the indy comics community. I’ve watched his powers expand and grow dramatically. Similarly, John Romita Jr. has ascended from Pro to Master before the eyes of thousands, into a style that’s a sort of strange other world of stripped down detailing. How can it be both stripped down and detailed at the same time?

I have no idea. You just have to see it. The man is magic.

If you showed me ten drawings by ten ten-year-olds in 1977 (of nearly the same thing… though that might not really matter), and told me one of them had been drawn by a young Dean Haspiel, I bet I could pick his out.

If you showed me a selection of drawings from the same kids’ high school years, I am absolutely positive that I could pick Haspiel’s out. No question.

What I’m saying is this: as much as their diligent cultivation of God-given powers has made them legends in our time, it’s all built on the foundation of a peculiar talent that came into this world with their very fingertips. The essential draughtsman was there at the beginning. That’s the talent. And the talent is what we really admire.

So what’s the difference between them and Golden? These guys are lauded as great successes for all the hard work they put into their craft. If Joe Schmuck on the street logged just as many hours (and some Joe Schmucks do) at the same craft as these draughstmen, no one would give a hoot. Because Joe Schmuck doesn’t have it. Tim Sale has it. Man does he have it. And as much as his hardwork pays off in making him better and better, it’s still will always be the essential Tim Sale, the talent he was born with, that we love.

So why is it okay to admire their talent of draughtsmanship but we look down our noses at Bianca Golden whose God-given talent turns out to simply be a great set of legs and a pretty face? She did no more and no less for her great beauty than Lewis Trondheim did for his warm draughtsmanship and curious humor.

I know, I know… if Golden does break through, she can cry about the demeaning talk all the way to the bank. That’s fine. The bank isn’t what I’m interested in. What I’m interested in is the honest valuation of artists among the aesthetic class. That’s us. The folks that appreciate art. I want us to get right with the Truth as it pertains to talent, hard work and Art.

The truth is that, at the end of the day, we love artists for their talent and you can’t earn talent. If you can’t earn talent (and you can’t), then there is no reason to create a hierarchy among them. The real question is this: how effectively does the Artist apply his talent (craft) to the successful evocation of emotion (art).

I grant you: models tend to be more craft than art. They tend to apply their talent in the service of someone else’s vision. Fine. Not all of them, though. And, if by looking good Bianca Golden can get to our guts and move us, then, I say, get her an NEA grant to cover her L’Oreal bills.

It’s inspiration we need.

I don’t care what does it.

[Note from 2020: this post made a load of cartoonists mad back in the day. It was as close to a scandal this blog has ever had. There were loads of comments on the blog, though a lot of that was me responding, but it also sparked conversations on at least three other websites. So, while I haven’t generally saved comments on the old version of this site, I took the time to copy these over. ]

COMMENTS

Von Allan

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 12:46 pm

I read your recent post “On Merit” and I just wanted to drop you a quick line. Mainly because I so passionately disagree with you it’s almost mind-boggling.

The problem I have with your post is this: by putting forth the argument that artists are “born and not made” (which, y’know, you are when you phrase things like, “The truth is, most of the hardworking people we admire in this world succeed primarily on virtues they were born with whether they want them or not. You can enhance your brain power with study, but you have to be born smart to rock the Chem Lab.”), you are making an elitist argument from where I sit. Why? Because you presume, with this argument, two critical points. The first is that being popular is somehow a measure of artist merit. The second is that opportunity touches everyone in an equal-handed way. I’m going to address both in just a sec.

First up is opportunity. Artists, especially artists that come to their craft at a very young age, often have more opportunity than others. Often times this opportunity is financial (there is a world of difference between the upbringing that an artist like Alex Ross had in comparison to someone growing up in, say, bombed out Lebanon). Having the financial wherewithal to pursue art is a major factor in the ability to get better and develop one’s artistic skills. It’s difficult to grow as an artist when one is simply struggling to survive. Other times, the opportunity is more abstract. Some kids have the self-esteem to get over the tough times as they learn their particular craft and others don’t. In addition, I believe strongly that some children get the right type of support at the right time to give them enough confidence to keep going. That support could come from a parent or a teacher or someone else. It could even come from within themselves with their own inherent stubbornness. Regardless, something keeps them going and they get over their inherent “terribleness” to become fantastic artists in whatever medium they choose. This is even true when it comes to sport and athletics. When you factor these two points together (the financial opportunity to learn a craft combined with the self-esteem issues to get over the bad days), it becomes very clear that artistic opportunity is not egalitarian.

You also said this, “If you showed me a selection of drawings from their high school years, I am absolutely positive that I could pick them out. No question. What I’m saying is this: as much as their diligent cultivation of God-given powers has made them legends in our time, it’s all built on the foundation of a peculiar talent that came into this world with their very fingertips. The essential draughtsman was there at the beginning. That’s the talent. And the talent is what we really admire.” I don’t want to be mean, but this is utter nonsense. First, this is a Straw Man argument: we clearly can’t go into the past and see sketchbooks from artists before they made it. But for your argument to have weight, we’d also have to see the sketchbooks from the artists who did NOT make it. Without, of course, having any idea of what the final career outcome of all the potential artists would be. It’s one thing to argue, as you basically are doing here, that you would have been able to spot a “John Romita Jr.” a mile away. It’s another thing to see, say, 100 sketchbooks with only Romita’s destined to be from a future professional artist. Would you have been able to point out Romita without knowing what his future would bring? ‘Course, my point here is that no one could know. No one is that prescient. That’s the problem with Straw Men; they seem logical ’til you start hammering away at them.

That aside, I’m going to go with some examples that shoot this argument to pieces. Andrew Loomis, one of the most gifted visual artists in the past century, was asked to leave art school shortly after joining it (from his Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth, page 17, “May I confess that two weeks after entering art school, I was advised to go back home? That experience has made me much more tolerant of an inauspicious beginning than I might have otherwise have been…”). Not to be too crass, but if Mr. Loomis’ art instructors could not see his talent, why would anyone else? Why would you? Perhaps someone else in a different school would have, but this, of course, is my very point. The aesthetic of art and what someone considers to have merit can vary widely between individuals and institutions.

Roger Kahn, a gifted writer in his own right, had this to say in Boys of Summer (page 81), “‘I always knew,’ Robert Frost said one day in his cabin at Ripton. He had been talking about obscure years and how he had held on.

‘I could give all to Time except - except What I myself have held. But why declare The things forbid that while the Customs slept I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There, And what I would not part with I have kept.’”

Kahn continues, “I wonder if anyone always knows - you, me, Jackie Robinson, even Robert Frost - that we will cross to Safety. Or is it rather that when we are There, we think we always knew?”

We don’t know. That’s the point. Artists like Vincent Van Gogh, now considered legendary, could barely make a living at their art in their own lifetimes. Van Gogh in particular was close to starvation just before he’d eventually die (take a look at his stay in Antwerpen in 1885-1886, four years prior to his death). I’m curious how Van Gogh fits into your thesis? From your essay’s point of view, Van Gogh’s position was the same as Joe Schmuck. Very few people at the time considered he had talent at all. Or, to rephrase your own words, the popular opinion of the time would have been that “Van Gogh doesn’t have it.” This is, of course, utterly false. The iron is that this public opinion changed after he died. And in the approximately 100 years since he died, he is now considered an artist genius. Popularity and public opinion, when discussing art, means nothing.

To drive home my point further: The National Gallery of Canada is this country’s preeminent arts gallery. Despite this, there has never been a comic book artist in its halls. Only Roy Lichtenstein even comes close. The National Gallery is considered to be the be all and end all of what’s considered to be art. And yet the four artists you refer to (Dean Haspiel, John Romita, Jr., Lewis Trondheim and Tim Sale) have never ordained it’s walls. By the measure of your argument, they do not have merit. Comics, from the Gallery’s point of view, are clearly not art. That may change (and a number of us are working to change that), but as it stands right now that’s the case.

The only point I’ll add is this: to be an artist, you have to be courageous. The aesthetics of art are so broad and tastes can change so often that an artist can easily become flavour of the month. And just as quickly forgotten. It takes courage to do art. To have the courage of your conviction and do art when perhaps no one else believes in you. When it comes to art, that’s the only talent there is. The courage to overcome. By conflating populism with artistic merit (or Talent or whatever word you choose to use), you are undermining the inherent nature of what art is. There is nothing God-given about art at all. There is the work. And there is courage to do the work.
moggy

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 1:38 pm

“The truth is that, at the end of the day, we love artists for their talent and you can’t earn talent.”

So much of this article is so wrong to me that I hardly know where to start. There’s absolutely no such thing as “god-given talent”…not in the fashion industry, not in the arts community, not in the science field. Not in any field.

An unattractive woman can become fashion-model beautiful with the right application of plastic surgery and liposuction…an artist can become a wonderful creator with the right application of time and effort…and a scientist can make incredible contributions to his field with the proper application of dedication and research.

I’m a writer/editor and I have an impressive resume to my name now; I’ve worked for private industry, publishers, and government, and I can ask for quite a nice hourly rate these days. I’m a very good editor.

And do you know why? Because I read a lot, because I pay attention to words and etymology, because I have a driving passion for expressing myself in writing. Was I always a good writer/editor? God, no. I always loved writing and that love came across even in my pencil scrawled ’short stories’ as an eight year old…but I wasn’t always good.

Of course, not every one of us can be any single thing we want to be; some of us are handicapped by reality. For example, I have several conditions that mean I can never be a jet pilot. But if I didn’t have the physical problems, I have no doubt I could be a damn good jet pilot with the proper training, dedication, and practice.

Just like I could be an artist if I put the blood, sweat, and tears in every day. If I had a thick enough skin and if I was really driven to do it.

As could you.

Please think about it.
the king in shreds and tatters

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

Lame.

That difference between the talented and the non-talented is that the talented enjoy what, to the non-talented, is hard and unfulfilling work. Talent is a need as much as any innate ability.
thistoowillpass

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 3:54 pm

Look forward to a detailed response to my critiques here later tonight, if you’re interested. In the meantime, I just want to say that I find “The King’s” comment fascinating. I don’t really disagree with it, necessarily. Yet he says I’m “lame,” implying that he assumes I’d vehemently disagree. I don’t. I don’t think it’s the only form talent takes, but I don’t disagree either.
thistoowillpass

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

Usually I reply to comments one by one but since the three above largely go into the same issues and because I’m not getting to them till now, I think I can do it all at once.

I think these issues are life and death. Seriously. Art and aesthetics are just about as important to me as any topic is. I get my bills paid trying to convince bought off politicians to cut come cash loose to give health insurance to poor workers, but I honestly believe that creative work is every bit as important. Moreso.

So I appreciate anyone who’s willing to give my thoughts on the topic the time and interest to rip into them this hard. We have to have this conversation and keep it going. Controversy is conversation with something at stake.

Okay, I frequently find that the biggest fights on the Internet come down to misunderstandings. The misunderstandings are sometimes the writers’ fault and, sometimes, in a way, the readers. I do think it’s the reader’s responsibility to try to grab on to what the fundamental point the writer is trying to get at and ask themselves if an implication of his writing that they disagree with is something he maybe considered and set aside because it didn’t really fit his thesis.

For example, a friend who read this last night called me and said that Bianca Golden could rise above other models by being just a little more fit, by practicing her walks, by learning to do make-up just right, by finding the perfect treatments for her skin.

No question. I was trying to get at the fundamentals, though. The fundamental is that talent is real and inherent and there is no reason to pat a kid on the back for getting ahead because he’s smart and look down our nose at a kid for getting ahead because she’s pretty.

Because I’m interested in Art, though, I got interested in talent as it relates to art as I wrote it.

Here’s the real point that my commentors and I disagree on: are you born with it or not? I think you are.

Now, there is a whole other issue, here, right? What about the artist who’s born with some of it and manages to squeeze an awful lot out of what he’s got? The one with a little talent and a lot of will?

That artist is very real and he’s more heroic. I had him in mind when I wrote the above, but the piece was already long enough and it was distracting. So I left him out.

On the other hand, there are limits. Moggy wrote a woman can make herself as beautiful as a model if she wants with surgery and excercise. That’s just patently false. The ugly girl is just never going to be Christy Turlington. Never, ever, ever.

Sorry if that hurts anyone’s feelings, but this is the truth we’re talking about here and that isn’t true. Similarly, while Tom Hart may make me laugh my ass off and grab my conscience like no one else, he can practice till his fingers bleed and he’s never going to have the realism of Steve McNiven. Not that realism is the only thing that makes a drawing good, by any means, but it is a race that Hart, as much as I love him, will never win.

That said, I think Von Allan, above, really really misunderstood what I was trying to say about drawing. I must have put it wrong.

Let me try again: I never meant to suggest that you should be able to pick out a great artist when he’s 10. That’s crazy talk. Of course you’re right. All I meant, is that the character of a draughtsman’s work is there from the very beginning. He has a way of moving the pen. He has a way of seeing the world. You can see it in everything he does.

What I meant was that if you showed me ten drawings by ten kids who were ten in 1977 and one of them had been drawn by Dean Haspiel, I could probably tell you which one was Dino’s by the way it looked. Even that early. If I failed that test, by high school it would be there. The look that’s uniquely him. We’ve all got it in whatever we do well.

There’s a famous composer… I forget the name… that Terry Gross once asked whether he ever tried to write a song that didn’t sound like him. He said he always tried to do it and he always failed. We are who we are. We can cultivate it, we can make it awesome, we can learn how to really stretch ourselves, but it’s only us we’ll ever stretch, because we are us.

I agree that there is a lot of unfairness out there when it comes to opportunity and public opinion or the will to stick it out. No question. Fairness isn’t the question I’m really interested in here, though. I’m interested in inspiration and I’m interested in good work driving others to good work (like Von Allan said…. we definitely agree on that… if you feel you need to do the work then for God’s sake, do it. We need it. Even if you’re destined for obscurity… we need it).

Look, I feel the frustrations of lacking adequate talent. I know it. The talent isn’t the end all and be all though, though it will define everything we do and put our stamp on it. Like that character in Vonnegut’s BLUEBEARD, you can have the talent and fail to express anything, so then you fail at art. So everyone needs to push what they have and they might still connect with others.

So we disagree on what talent is and we disagree about its importance. We agree that creative will is essential and we agree that if you believe in yourself then you’ve gotta do it and damn the torpedoes.

Steve Martin just did a new book about his career before he’d broken through because that, he said, is when creative people are their most interesting. I agree. I think you guys would too.

But we also disagree about public sentiment. Again, of course, Von Allan is right that artists like Van Gogh and Emily Dickinson died in obscurity. Fine. Sometimes the world is unjust and you don’t get recognized until you’re dead and sometimes you don’t have enough faith in yourself and you would have made it if you stuck it out and sometimes you never get any recognition even though you did the work, it’s just that it never got seen by the right person.

It sucks.

That said, my philosophy is one that’s wedded to the notion of the Progress of History. I’m developing this in my RADICAL BOY MANIFESTO (linked in the categories), a work in progress. Please peruse and tear into that, too. It’s a draft and it needs it. Like I said: this shit matters.

I believe that we make Art because we want to make a connection with a lot of people and I believe Art contributes to History when it does so. I also believe that a mediocre artists who never get recognized contributes to history by contributing to a milieu in which the greats can thrive and excel.

At the end of the day, though, History will be the judge I’m interested in (not the National Gallery of Canada). History shows her approval in a lot of ways, not just popularity, but, ultimately, History does come to a decision about most of us and it usually decides to forget us. I think that what History has to say about an artist ultimately matters because it assigns us our place in Human Progress, a story in which the Artist is essential, and I think you guys feel that way too.
Stacey Garratt

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 9:59 pm

What is the difference between an artist ‘carrying out the vision’ of a writer and/or studio and a model carrying out the vision of a photographer and/or agency client? This seems to be simply a difference in the perceived values of two commodities, unless you believe that there is something of greater purity in art. If this is your opinion, I find it interesting that you have chosen as your comparison a medium which is so identifiably salable and commodified.
thistoowillpass

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Ms. Garratt:

I think we see it the same.

There is almost no difference. Again, this is an implication of what I wrote that I chose not to delve into. But contract work of any kind at the behest of someone else’s vision is less art/more craft. These lines are not clearly defined and, at times, such work is more collaboration than contract, and, in that way, the real deal.

But, in terms of the essential point. I think I’m with you and I think we’re on the same page. Thanks for writing in and adding some clarity.

P.S. your work has a lot of the same lusty quality of Paul Pope with a larger dose of control. Very nice.
Stacey Garratt

Says:

December 12th, 2007 at 11:22 pm

I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, but I certainly enjoy a lively debate that keeps its dignity. I think it may be fair to say that a testament of skill is bringing original artfulness to contracted work.

(RePS: Those lusty lines belong to Nikki Cook, my artist, and I will certainly pass to her the compliment!)
thistoowillpass

Says:

December 13th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

This is more than a little embarrassing, but Von Allan, the first guy to tear into me above, posted his reply to me on his own blog and generated a lot more conversation there than I did here. I encourage you to check it out. Here you go! If you’ve already read his comment above, skip down to the other ones. It’s a reprint.
thistoowillpass

Says:

December 13th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Lots of conversation on this over at Dino’s site, too.
plymo

Says:

December 15th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

I believe artists are extremly sensitive membranes, there spiritual receivers you could say. And as thinnner the membrane is, as more beautiful the art is.But we are all receivers, all born as receivers. With different kind of antennas. And slowly through learning, may it be in this life, in the past lifes or the coming, we sharpen our frequencies. But this artistry can be flourish in different ways. Somebody will develop his managing art, or his rowing art or his painting art. Art is a fine melody, a harmony. and this melody can play in all kinds of forms. So to compare turlington with a so called ugly girl is not right, turlingtons art is another manifestation of THE ART, another form of the harmony.
snail

Says:

December 16th, 2007 at 10:27 am

First, I find your inconsistencies in the capitalization of the “a” in art quite amusing. Are you differentiating Art and art?

Secondly, your point about history being a judge of the validity or influence of an artist is an idea that is quickly becoming diluted when you consider that our capabilities of recording history have increased vastly over the last century. When at one time, painting, drawing, writing and word-of-mouth were the only documentations of events and daily life, today we have a generation in which many are literally born with a point-and-shoot camera in reach, ready to document life. We are able to access an infinite amount of art these days, whether it’s a commercial on tv, or an illustration blog which links to another cool illustration blog, or the graffiti that someone tags on the boxcar of a train. All these things and much, much more are being considered forms of art. And so many of these things are documented by a mass audience.In fact, so many of us have sensory overload because of this. Everywhere we look, we’re bombarded by man-made visuals and designs. We have yet to find the time to listen to all of our bazillion gigabytes of music and read our ever-lengthening list of rss feeds.

It is hard to say that history was a “judge” of anything. History was/is technically supposed to document events and people and their lives right? History as we see it today is the result of what the historian chose/happened to see/experience/research and then what he/she chose to write about. More so, it is highly dependent on how many historians were recording history, and who was editing that history into the stories that we now know today.

Which leads me to ask: How is history currently being written/documented? and WHO is writing it? And how is this continuously expanding exposure to art and culture changing not only the meaning of art, but its validity and its remembrance?

In this day and age, we have all become historians in some way or other. We document and expose our lives and talents in mediums such as photo, video, youtube, tv, blog, etc, and are increasingly able to see and learn about everything around us. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to determine what will be influential and to whom. Popular culture might determine it. The prolificness of an artist (lots of work + lots of exposure) might determine it. Shock value might determine it. But there are so many people to be influenced and so many people who are influencing.

With a larger pool of historians, events and accomplishments will be much more accounted for, in greater detail, and many more genres and mediums and individuals will be valued for their talent and creativity than ever before. The graphic design, the illustrations, the graffiti, the performance art, the books, the essays, the tv shows, the movies, etc,.

The master painters of yesteryear were definitely examples of sheer talent, but the fact that they were recognized while other possible talents went forgotten definitely had more to do with the narrow scope for exposure, and not as much with the inborn ability to be creative. If those forgotten artists had had the chance to upload their art to the internet, maybe somebody in another part of the world would have considered them a master too.

Your statement “History does come to a decision about most of us and it usually decides to forget us” is too reliant on the idea of the picky historian who no longer exists. The world today is full of non-choosy historians-in-the-making. They are viewing and recording everything. According to them, there are too many “greats” out there.
davpunk

Says:

December 16th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

I agree with [the post]. I am an artist, I have been drawing since I was able to do so. Art, Music, Writing, Athletics etc are all talents or gifts that have been given to people. These gifts are that “something” to begin with- that same “something” that makes one pursue that gift, and is given the passion to follow it. All that is said here are great arguments, but also point to the root of where the “talent” comes from. Artists, musicians, athletes etc. of our time did NOT decide at age 40 that they were going to be a great at what they chose. Something chose them, it was a part of them, part of their life, and their passion for that made them grow into what might be considered “great.”

If were talking about artists specifically, and someone mentioned Alex Ross, hes a perfect example. He has been drawing his entire life. If he didnt go to school, would he have been as good? Yes. He has talent, he was given talent. It might have taken longer to get to the point he is at now, but he would have gotten there. If anyone could learn to be amazing artists, why are there so many bad artists? If you took Average Joe, and put him in the same program that Alex Ross is in, would he turn out as an equivalent? No. And part of that is because he doesnt have that root of talent to begin with. Why doesnt Average Joe have that root, that passion or that interest in art to begin with? Its because he wasnt given that “gift.” he got something else that is a calling. I believe everyone is given something. Some people love to talk, act, draw, write, play sports, whatever…the people that were given something, pursue that with passion.

Some person mentioned writing, and how he loves to read and write, and how he pays attention to words. Thats great, but WHY does he do that? Average Joe doesnt do that. He was given a gift to be a writer, and the passion to write. It all comes down to the same thing, a seed that is planted that grows with dedication and passion that makes one excel beyond anyone that just decides to learn at a later age. At that point, it is just ones interest or hobby- not their life.
James Anderson

Says:

December 16th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

I am in agreement that we can view a work of an artist and see their individualism in the work they created as a child. We are as artists, of course, the summation of our past experiences. What we learn when we are young is carried with us. Just as language is learned more easily at an earlier age, the fundamentals of art can become ingrained when we are most impressionable too.

But like the others who disagree, I also have a problem with the idea of being “born with it”. The problem I have isn’t that an artist might have a predilection toward creating art. The problem is just what exactly “it” is. As stated above, the value of the artist’s work might not be appreciated for what they are in the time the art is made. Van Gogh was not appreciated in his lifetime. So what? Does the fact that he has an appreciative following now automatically mean that he was born with some universal goodness that 19th century art critics were just too dumb to see? Heck no.

By assuming that artists we consider great were born with the tools to make them great is missing the point - that point being how we even determine what makes their art great in the first place. And alas, that opens up an entirely new can of worms when I say that the only thing that makes art great is the opinion we have about the job that it is supposed to be performing. What we consider a great work of art is not contingent on a scale where work is measured by it’s value in comparison to other work. Yes, we may judge the value of a John Romita Jr. comics page by comparing it to others, but our ideas of what we want out of our art change over time. They aren’t static. That’s why Van Gogh wasn’t appreciated in his own time. But if we take one of his paintings and bury it alongside a Thomas Kinkade until all reference to either is forgotten, what will future art critics have to say about them? They may prefer Kinkade’s syrupy scene to Van Gogh’s work and proclaim it to be the superior. Would they be right? Sure they would, as far as they’re concerned. Does that mean Kinkade was born with more of “it” than Van Gogh and we currently are now too dumb to get it?

Why do we like the art that we do? is it because we can look at it and declare that it contains some inherent greatness? Or is it our own preconceptions and tastes that determine what is wonderful in our own eyes? If we like the art of John Romita Jr. and the others mentioned before, it’s possible that part of the reason might be because of the recommendation of other lovers of art, or that we see something familiar in it. These are things that we bring along when we’re looking at art. This is all relevant because how does nature, God, the universe, or whatever, conspire to create, at the instant of birth, the ability for this budding future artist to know what artwork will be appreciated by the time they’re old enough to be pumping out comic books? It doesn’t know. It’s a crap shoot.

We are, obviously, born with all manner of differences and abilities. Short legged people will not win marathons. And some people may have a greater ability to see color differences than others, or a finer spacial acuity. These are things that may have served our ancestors in some life and death struggle that allowed them to pass this genetic information onto the next generation. Or these may also be learned experiences as well. But because these physical attributes vary so much from person to person, and because there are so many variables in the upbringing and opportunities a person has, as well as how any artwork is perceived at any time in history, there is no way to say for sure which of these propelled them into the spotlight. There is no way to say then that one is “born with it”. To say so would be like saying Michelangelo was born with the innate ability to create Oscar winning motion pictures.
thistoowillpass

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December 16th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

Plymo, this is a really beautiful reply and I don’t want to argue with it. I think you’re right. This stuff is complex. I think it’s true that you can have a lot of talent and yet never quite say anything. Like the main character in Vonnegut’s BLUEBEARD. And, you’re right to point out that being beautiful isn’t really used for what I’d call “ART,” but I think it could be. That’s why i wanted to talk about it, because I think the notion of beauty as talent, potentially artistic talent, is a really challenging and perhaps important idea. Ballerinas are artists, and their beauty certainly helps them.
thistoowillpass

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December 16th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

Dav, Wow, it’s so gratifying to finally run across someone who actually sees it my way. There’ve been a few others. I hate to diminish anyone, but it just seems obvious to me that there are people with talent, with different levels of talent and those without. It’s hard to put your finger on what it is… and while Tom Hart and Alex Ross are pretty different artists, you wouldn’t argue that Tom Hart isn’t talented, right? I don’t think anyone would.

I really didn’t think this aspect of the post would be controversial, to be honest. But there has been a decently large shitstorm around it.
thistoowillpass

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December 16th, 2007 at 4:41 pm

Snail, you’re right to point out the silliness of my “art” and “Art” inconsistency. I don’t really know what I was driving at. That said, I think my idea of the judgment of History is that we all seem to come to agreement eventually about what’s important and what isn’t. It isn’t some Historian. It’s… I don’t know… everyone. It just seems to happen. The story gets agreed upon. Books stop getting read. You know? Sure, they are still in the Library of Congress, but no one opens them.
erica

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December 17th, 2007 at 3:56 am

I’m a painter/artist/whatever. I’ve painted and drawn my entire life. It was encouraged by my parents at a young age and that helped, I’m sure. I think some people take a liking to drawing naturally. In the same way that some people have a natural affinity for math and some don’t. But anyone can learn the technical points from classes or books. And if they have the motivation to draw or paint then that’s really all that’s required. That they want to paint or draw is the primary factor. Art is a communication. And it’s open to anyone who wants it.
plymo

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December 17th, 2007 at 8:38 am

there is one thing I find really sad in discussions about talent in art. Its the argumentation about who is better. And that is going in the wrong direction. Its a very capitalistic point of view.After a long discussion with myself why I should make art, the purpose of it, I came to the conclusion, that art is what influences culture in any way. Not especially what hangs in the museum or in a gallery. Beuys said everybody can make art, I say everybody already makes art. Because everybody influences culture in one or the other way. In that sense art can be an influencing company, for example a telephone company that develops a revolutionary new phone or somebody who cleans the Hilton hotel.Ssomething that changes a certain general mood you could say, like an additional tone in a note so that the sound gets different. Thats one part of the story. The other part is that I believe is that art is also a completly personal spiritual way of living. Art is a language, like spoken language. But not only with other humans, its also a communication, like a secret gate to the deeper mystical dimensions of reality. And that doesnt need any audience, nobody who says if its good or less good.
thistoowillpass

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December 17th, 2007 at 9:32 am

Erica, Of course I agree. I wish more people would try it. I guess the point I disagree about is whether or not it’s possible to really bust through and blow people’s minds if you don’t have the talent. Anyone can enjoy it. Anyone can get better. Anyone can find satisfaction in it. All true. No question. Everyone who likes to draw should do it. That said, can they be great?
thistoowillpass

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December 17th, 2007 at 9:41 am

plymo, I’m fine with a broad definition of art, but not yours. Not to be too harsh, but there is a trend in present (particularly liberal - and I am very much a liberal) thinking to make definitions worthless. To say everything is everything. As if to say a thing is one thing and not another thing diminishes it. Well, then what’s the point of language and categories at all, then? How can we distinguish anything from anything else if everything is art? If everything is good? If things are black and white at the same time? The irony, here, is that the work of the artist is to make himself understood. To recognize that language is so very, very inadequate and to try to use paint, words, pictures, video, music and whatever else comes to hand to express something ineffable that words can’t convey. Yet it’s also artists who insist on eradicating the distinction between things… when it’s only a shared understanding of those distinctions that enable us to understand anything at all. What other distinctions will we break down. Will a carpenter now be an engineer because they both contribute to the building process? Will a nurse now be a doctor because they both participate in medicine? Will the Best Boy now be a Director because they both make the movie come to together? Will the janitor now be the CEO because they are both essential to the company? Distinctions matter. Art is the intentional and strategic manipulation of communication media to convey the creative idea of one creative person’s vision acting solely with the intent of expressing himself. It is not the way I say hello to the receptionist in my office building. It is not my doodles during staff meetings. It is not my emails about when to take my vacation time. It is not even the party I throw for my friends. Sorry, I just really disagree. We need to agree on what is what and what isn’t and have the self-respect not to feel bad when everything can’t be everything. BR
Pi6

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December 17th, 2007 at 11:39 am

I disagree strongly. The only “gifts” that can be given to an artist are patience, a neurotic streak, and the time to practice, and even those are based on circumstances. It is true that some artists like Pollock and Warhol ride the zeitgeist to stardom, but lets not mistake that for artistic genius (tho many will). Rembrandt, Titian, and Salvador Dali (to name a very few) all started with very little ‘innate talent’ (Rembrandt never did learn to draw) and all became the definition of mastery. Picasso is the mutant freak exception the proves the rule - his “gift” was an emotional autism that made him a terrible person to be around.

Every young artist sees amazing artists around them and is stunned into thinking that there’s a magic to it. That sense kills off too many young artists. But there’s no magic to it at all - where you see magic, i see sweat and devotion. Being strong, patient, and dedicated is a choice, and i just wish i’d been told that at a younger age!
erica

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December 17th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

@Pi6: hallelujah…or something. @thistoowillpass: art is subjective. there are very famous minimalist artists who’ve “blown people’s minds” with one black stripe on a white canvas. I’d hardly say that required an atelier’s guidance to come up with that, but a lot of people were definitely wowed by this movement. and it didn’t require a technical knowledge of human body proportions or an ability to duplicate a landscape or any classical skills. Yet these works are on permanent display at the Tate Modern and in your art history books because of their philosophical relevance. Because they did communicate something about the culture at the time. It’s not my favorite genre at all, but it had an importance in the time line of philosophy in our culture. and it communicated something to some people. Everything isn’t art. But anything can be made into art, if that is the intention. And sometimes people like it, and sometimes they don’t.
thistoowillpass

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December 17th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

Erica, I agree 100%. Talent is not so simple as being able to represent the world. I’ve often said that real talent is not knowing what to put in but what to leave out. The modernists were a great and important movement. I think the talent there was seeing what needed to be said about painting at the time. I think a lot of them, too, had considerably more “skill” in the old sense than they used because they didn’t see a reason for it at that moment. Talent takes many forms. Never let it be said that I don’t think Rothko was a great talent, even if I’d never want one of his paintings.

P.S. I rather liked this comment by Will Finn over at www.drawn.ca, a big blog that was cool enough to identify this conversation for its readers.
pi6

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December 17th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

Reading more of your posts, I think you may be dodging around an issue that i’d like your opinion about. Making art is a profession. Like the word “athlete,” every one can be an artist, but the only ones who matter are professionals. Sometimes it sounds like you’re talking about a tiny cult of artists who “make it” but there are hundreds of thousands of working creative professionals - most of whom are only geniuses to their mothers. We’d all love to be a star, but most of us just want to be able to make enough money to eat.

I think you should read the biographies of artists, but im not sure how much it will tell you. I would recommend “my secret life” and “30 secrets of magic craftsmanship” by Salvador Dali. In both, Dali spends much time saying that he’s a visionary prophet of painting, (he says “to be a great artist you must be born in Spain and be named Salvador Dali”) while all the while giving away his slaving dedication to developing his techniques to the point where he turns his entire life into a obsessive compulsive rituals to train his mind to be a better painter.

I’d also recommend odd nerdrum’s website. He’s a whacko, but he’s made himself a master by convincing himself he is one.
thistoowillpass

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December 17th, 2007 at 5:05 pm

pi6: I think people have mistaken what I said to mean that I think there are the greats and there is crap. Not so. So very wrong. There are a wide array of people who are making contributions. Some of them are amateurs. In fact, I believe everyone participating in the milieu is important. I wrote about that this weekend, starting here. Thanks for the suggestions of books and websites.
Toby

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December 17th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

People who say no one is born with artistic talent are probably poor draughtsmen. People who say some are born with artistic talent are probably very skilled draughtsmen. But being a skilled draughtsmen/women is no longer (has not been for some time) necessary in order to create what is considered “great art.” As well, the positions in which someone can work and contribute “creatively” have grown temendously since the 20th century and even more so since the advent of the internet and again do not hinge on the ability to “draw well.” Anyone in the world can pick up a pencil and make marks but not everyone can make those marks communicate. Everyone wants to believe that genius is not innate so that they can feel better about not being one themselves. I could have been as good as Michael Jordan but I just didn’t practice as hard as he did. No, probably not. He was given something at birth that I was not given. Period.
pi6

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December 17th, 2007 at 7:34 pm

Toby, that’s very defeatist of you, and also very shallow. I used to think people were born with talent, and its true, back then i wasn’t a very good draughtsman. Then a quite famous draughtsman showed me there was no magic to it - its almost as simple as “putting the lines where they belong.” Today i draw very well, and make a living out of it.

Alot of times talent is one of those things where it seems like you either have it or you don’t - but i think alot of that is because of the sheer psychological effect of consuming great artwork. You look at something and say “why can’t i do that?” Well the fact is that you can, you just don’t. Reread ‘Drawing on the right side of the brain’ - Mental blocks can be overcome, but overcoming them is a totally imperfect science - it takes coaching and faith!
thistoowillpass

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December 17th, 2007 at 8:07 pm

One of the things that I think is really good about Toby’s point is that he’s tried to lift the conversation out of merely drawing. Drawing is what we all seem to understand best on here, but I was trying to address all the arts at once.

Another thing that seems to have gotten bogged down here is the whole idea of “good” versus “bad.” There’s a lot of “good” out there, even if it isn’t all sublime. M.C. Escher was an exceptional draughtsman who leaves me pretty cold as an artist, but that’s not to say he wasn’t good. He was really good. You know?

Just as lots of good artists are doing good relevant work and have talent, even if they are never going to quite be rockstars.

What I was trying to challenge, really, is the notion that any field is either devoid of talent or devoid of hard work.

People obviously invested in the idea that drawing is all hard work. I think that’s nonsense. I think talent plays a big role, but what you do with it and how much you put into that is another question. Hard work is not enough.

Other people tend to think that models and athletes are mostly talent. I think that’s nonsense. I think they both work really hard. I think work plays a huge role with both of them, but how much art they manage to pull out of that work, as opposed to pure craft, is a whole other issue. Talent is not enough.
plymo

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December 17th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

I believe artistic talent is a degree of communicating to others what we call truth. An Artist is somebody who can see and communicate truth to others. Because truth is general. Its an UR-Language we all somehow understand. So I believe the personal spiritual level of a person is the amount of artistic talent he has. Because people who can see truth understand that harmony is a connecting element between different forms of visual/physical manifestations on earth. Like music and painting for example. I think the way you make music or paintings is actually the same, its just a question of understanding the harmonies. Experiencing somebody communicating this truth is watching an artist. That could be a girl I make love with for example.
John C. Worsley

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December 18th, 2007 at 12:41 am

Interesting, lively discussion. Thanks for writing on it.

Incidentally, Philip Glass was the musician interviewed by Gross (the one who “always” attempts to write a piece that doesn’t sound like a P. Glass piece, and always fails).
pi6

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:00 am

For the record, drawing isn’t the hard part, dedicating yourself to the time and effort to learn is the hard part!

When you say someone has talent, i am pretty sure that all you mean is that the cards lined up and created a situation in which one person had the resources to make extremely likeable things. You can call it fate, but don’t call it innate - that is unless you can back it up with genetic research.

I’d suggest some reading on the psychology of creativity and the sociology of cult objects. There has been alot of clarifying research recently that has flown under the art world radar about why people create and why people are drawn to certain art objects. One that i rather enjoyed was Descartes Baby by Paul Bloom.
davpunk

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:42 am

Toby has many good points. People who arent as “good” or dont have the talent think that they can learn new techniques to get the talent. Thats true to a point, and that goes back to different levels of art, and then there is todays conception of art-Which is watered down to doing practically anything visual, and being a poor draftsman means you have created a “style.” Most traditional artists respect other traditional artists and can see the talent of someone equal to them.

Artists of different levels recognize their level and acknowledge it. A seasoned professional artist of the purest form can visually problem solve and can recognize all the correct mechanics that goes into a piece of work- as someone who hasnt dedicated their lives to the arts or to the practice of foundation.

Yes there are greats like Pollock, who became famous- but was he a great artist technically? No. He splattered paint on canvas- to ME and yes it is totally subjective, it is not art. Any fool can slap paint on anything and call it art. Any fool can cut up paper and ball it up and proclaim some emotion behind it. To most respected artists, that isnt art. Traditional artists tend to be purists. Can you paint? Can I take away your computer and see if you can do something good? There is such thing as mechanically and technically GOOD art and rendering. Good artists KNOW that- and not everyone is going to see that or agree.

As for the guy who said anyone can be a model if they got surgery…then thats proving the point of being born with something. Some are born with Beauty. They dont need to change themselves to achieve that. Some are born with the ability to crunch numbers. Sure I can do things to learn that, but I will NEVER be as good as someone whos brain has the natural ability to do math.

This is why all people are different. This is why there are artists, programmers, actors, musicians, accountants…something was given to them to become that. They didnt decide to win the Tour de France like 7 times at the age of 40 because they liked bike riding. Michaelangelo didnt decide after school that he liked to paint and wanted to do the sistine chapel. Mozart didnt decide that he was going to be a composer one sunday afternoon. They didnt try a bunch of things first to figure out what they liked to do after 4 years of college.

BTW drawing and rendering something that is technically correct takes some time, and it is hard.

We can make this REALLY interesting. If everyone was to post their website of their work…not for proof of talent or not, but for constructive feedback, and maybe to grow as an artist- Id love to have my art critted by anyone.
pi6

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December 18th, 2007 at 11:10 am

/”They didnt decide to win the Tour de France like 7 times at the age of 40 because they liked bike riding. Michaelangelo didnt decide after school that he liked to paint and wanted to do the sistine chapel. Mozart didnt decide that he was going to be a composer one sunday afternoon. They didnt try a bunch of things first to figure out what they liked to do after 4 years of college.”/

You make some good points, but the people you listed had intense early education - studies show that people learn exponentially faster at those ages. That’s much different than innate or god-given talent. Mozart was taught piano at age 3 and was paraded around the country like Hanson before he knew what was what - sure he might have had a big brain, but If he had been given a chess set, he would have been the next Kasparov instead. Michaelangelo grew up in a quarry around stonecutters and was apprenticed at a young age. I will give you that Lance armstrong has phyiscal abnormalities such as a megasized heart that gives him superhuman endurance, but if he hadn’t been inspired by seeing athletes as a child, i guarantee he wouldn’t have had the drive to be a bicyclist. Plus you don’t learn to be an athlete, you work to change your body chemistry to be an athlete - much different.

As to why they became superstars, that’s a much different question. My theory will get you talent, but not fame. I’m not really sure which we’re talking about here. Sociology can tell us what makes superstars, and i’m sure it has anything to do with talent.

So my point is that it comes down to inspiration and education. Your welcome to have personal belief about fate, but i think science tells us that no one “just has it or just doesn’t have it.” It is much harder to learn as we get older, but not impossible. If you think its impossible, you’re just not doing it right.
OB1

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December 18th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

Great discussion, just wanted to add my 2 cents. First off I agree 100% with what erica and pi are saying. I grew up in Canada, was an only child, and found comfort at an early age locking myself in my room and drawing. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was my parents constantly fighting. Somehow drawing was my escape and so as I got older I just continued to do what felt “good”. I also had my mother and teachers who nurtured the fact that art was a good direction for me to go in. I remember drawing so much at an early age I had callouses on my fingers and still do. This wasn’t a “gift”. This was hard work. Maybe if I was born in Florida and spent all my days outside I would have become a basketball player. I really believe that your environment is a major contributor in what you become. No different than a child who’s mother is a drug addict. Studies have shown that a lot of those kids will be drug users. This is not always the case, there are exceptions.

My second point is that we can’t really compare art and athletics. A player that averages 30 pts a game throughout his career is better than a player that averages 6 pts a game (defensive contributions are not a factor in my point). Athletics for the most part can be measured with statistics. However just because a magazine chooses one illustrator over another illustrator for the cover it doesn’t mean that that artist is “better” than the one who didn’t get his art accepted. They may both be equal technically but it’s the editor that has the last say. If you were to ask the readers, they may actually like the art done by the artist who’s work wasn’t accepted more. This kind of thing can’t be measured with statistics. I could also go into how genetics are a much bigger factor with an athlete compared to an artist but i think pi covered it in his post above. I mean sure, if an artist was born with 2 right hands he’d have an advantage over someone who only uses one hand to draw with, but that is unheard of. However a basketball player who is 7 ft tall is going to have an advantage over one who is 5′9. Again there are exceptions but generally genetics can make up for skill a lot of the time in sports.
davpunk

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

“Great discussion, just wanted to add my 2 cents. First off I agree 100% with what erica and pi are saying. I grew up in Canada, was an only child, and found comfort at an early age locking myself in my room and drawing….this wasnt a gift.”

Ok…explain why it was drawing? Why not writing? Why not becoming physically stronger? Why not playing an instrument?

Its going to be an argument that will go in circles forever. Science vs. A higher power, but you honestly cant say that some people were put here to do something specific. People are drawn to certain things for reasons that no one can explain. Take Nurses for example, it takes a certain type of person to become one- you have to have an abnormal amount of compassion to care for people. You cant learn that- ya cant take a “compassion class” to make you care for people or want to heal their pain-sure you can go to school to become a Nurse, but only someone with those traits would do it. You guys seem to be missing the point, its about the root and the why.

Education is arguable. There are many amazing artists that have NO formal training. There are natural athletes. There are natural beautiful people. There are natural mathmatic problem solvers. Why?

Mozart was taught, but he was a prodigy- there are some things that cant be explained. What makes a child at such a young age take an interest in anything?

I was 3 when I started drawing. I didnt make a decision that I wanted to be an artist based off of my huge artbook collection or cartoons I watched. I drew all the time. Ive always been interested in it. I dont know why. I never knew why. Nothing makes me do it, no one tells me to draw, I just do it. So please, someone tell me why I love to draw…because that will answer lots of lifes questions.
thistoowillpass

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

Dav, I think you’re really getting to the heart of it here. I am a little more flexible than you are on some of your ideas about “good” and “not-so-hot,” but I’m with you 100% here on the “why” question. There’s plenty of kid in cold weather states that didn’t sit around drawing. Or found some other way to avoid their parents’ fighting. You know, I drew a fair amount growing up, but I got into lots of other stuff, too. Whereas, my friend Donny, just drew all the time. ALL THE TIME. His parents couldn’t get the pencil out of his hand. And he had a family that didn’t fight and weather in Kansas isn’t all that bad. What’s his excuse? Don’t ask Donny, he can’t tell you. It’s just what he wanted to do. There was something in him.
thistoowillpass

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

BIG POINT: I just think it’s funny that so many people are so invested in the idea that they aren’t talented. It’s ironic, isn’t it? Am I talented??? NO WAY! Don’t insult me like that! I work hard. Our Liberal ethic that all men are equal has been warped into a kind of effed-up idea that we’re all the same and we’re guilty about being born with a gift. It’s silly and it’s stultifying, because we are born with gifts and there is no shame in that. Gifts get distributed among humanity as needed and it’s great that we aren’t all the same and that some of us are better at somethings than others. BETTER. Really, really better. That doesn’t make them better humans, just better at certain tasks.
OB1

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

“Ok…explain why it was drawing? Why not writing? Why not becoming physically stronger? Why not playing an instrument?”

The answer is simple. I was given crayons and a sketchbook when I was younger. I wasn’t given a guitar, I wasn’t given weights. I wasn’t old enough to purchase anything, someone gave those things to me, I enjoyed it, and I excelled at it. If someone had given me a guitar at that early age I probably would have spent all my time in my room learning to play music.
pi6

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

Dav -

The root is simple - read even the most basic developmental psychology book. I don’t dare presume as to why you love to draw, but the most obvious explaination is that you always had psychologically stimulating experiences with art or drawing at an age too young for you to remember, and that it piqued your curiousity more than writing or something else ever would, even if it was unconcious to you. If you had art books and cartoons around they clearly influenced you even more. If your family had filled your room with football gear i’m sure you would have been different. curiosity is like a virus in children - once the seed is planted it is hard to kill. They have super impressionable brains and suck up whatever is put in front of them. It is said that Mozart as a toddler was enamored with sounds - the piano was a game he played with his sister and that was coupled with crazy overstimulating parenting. There are tons of super talented children, but only a few are raised to superstardom (which they don’t do on their own volition, i might add - someone has to raise a big fuss over them). It is very important in Japan to teach children classical music and math and they subsequently have a huge number of amazing players and mathematicians there. We stopped caring about music and science in school in the US, and we wonder why our kids test so low. There’s no magic, it just seems that way because our culture has lost its love for science. Science is a dirty word now - its seen as “anti-God” or something rediculous like that.

Plus, There certainly is a “compassion class” - its called a nurturing childhood enviroment!
OB1

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:51 pm

“BIG POINT: I just think it’s funny that so many people are so invested in the idea that they aren’t talented. It’s ironic, isn’t it? Am I talented??? NO WAY! Don’t insult me like that! I work hard.”

Honestly, it is a bit of an insult. By saying I have talent discredits all the years of hard work I’ve put into this medium. There are still things I am weak at for example my life drawing isn’t the greatest. People don’t see the hours of roughs that I need to do just to get a dynamic pose and the anatomy correct. They just say “you’re talented, drawing a female quickly shouldn’t be a problem for you” That’s like me saying “Rearrange this warehouse full of boxes and skids quickly. You’re strong, this shouldn’t be a problem for you.” You may be strong but it’s still hard work.
thistoowillpass

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:53 pm]

“You’re strong, this shouldn’t be a problem for you.” You may be strong but it’s still hard work.”

But it’s still a lot easier for the strong person than the weak one, right?
pi6

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December 18th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

OB1 - thank you for putting it more concisely!
pi6

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December 18th, 2007 at 2:08 pm

People aren’t born weak-willed. people learn to be strong and can choose to learn to be strong - willpower is learned as much as anything else is. The way of the ninja, so to speak. Unless ninjas are wrong….
OB1

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December 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pm

“But it’s still a lot easier for the strong person than the weak one, right?”

Where did he get his strength from? Hitting the weights, practice, concentration, determination. It wasn’t given to him.

Maybe that was a bad example since I stated that you can’t compare athletics to art. At the same time we’re talking strength, not height. Someone isn’t born strong but he may be born with genes that make him taller.

Does that make sense?
davpunk

Says:

December 18th, 2007 at 2:23 pm

“The answer is simple. I was given crayons and a sketchbook when I was younger. I wasn’t given a guitar, I wasn’t given weights. I wasn’t old enough to purchase anything, someone gave those things to me, I enjoyed it, and I excelled at it. If someone had given me a guitar at that early age I probably would have spent all my time in my room learning to play music.”

This does NOT mean that you would like it nor have continued interest in it. Parents always give kids things to do, but they dont always like them. It might not be “them” or a fit for them. So just because someone gives you something means youll like it? Interesting.

Certain things stick for a reason.

“Plus, There certainly is a “compassion class” - its called a nurturing childhood enviroment!”

Not all of them have a good childhoods, not all parents are good. This still does not mean they care, either. Thats an ideal thought and an assumption. I did mean that you can take a class at a school on caring, much like you can take a class on figure drawing. But NEITHER of them are going to automatically make you great at them.

If you dont love it, youre not going to work hard at it- and you wont be good at it. Thats basic. I suck at math, if I work hard at it, yes, I will be better, but I wont be great- my brain sucks at calulating numbers beyond basic math. 2 problems with that, 1. I have NO interest in working hard at math. I have no passion or drive for it. 2. If I dont have an interest in it, I will NOT excel in it. All people have certain abilities that they are given- hence the whole left brain right brain thing. Why does one choose a creative path over a logical path?
pi6

Says:

December 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pm]

Dav, that’s my point - of course there is a reason - If you don’t like or stop liking something your parents give you its because you have a negative psychological reaction to something about it - usually the way it was presented. Maybe you were just having a bad day at the time, maybe it seemed too hard or scary at first glance, but Its not god or something coming down saying “thou shalt not enjoy baseball”

No one is automatically great at anything. its a stimulus response learning process with an huge number of variables that shapes us. Children are like harddrives that come with virtually no mental software, the biological equivalent of DOS prompt. We have relatively few instincts -we need caretakers for as many as 18 years, which is about when our brain stops expanding. until then, we’re still loading the operating system, and haven’t even really begun to use any software.

You weren’t born with a non-math brain, you were raised with it. Intelligence might be somewhat based on your DNA, but not proclivity or comptetance.
OB1

Says:

December 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pm

“This does NOT mean that you would like it nor have continued interest in it. Parents always give kids things to do, but they dont always like them” “All people have certain abilities that they are given”

I think you are getting this mystical term “talent” confused with passion for a certain subject. As a child I was extremely passionate about drawing and 30 years later this “passion” has been the catalyst that allowed me to spend 18 hours at the drawing table each day, or to go back to college after I flunked my first year. This passion also almost got me fired from office jobs because all I did was doodle all day. But let’s not over complicate things. “Talent” wasn’t magically injected into me at birth, instead it started out like a small seed when I first began drawing, my interest grew, and with the proper nurturing and practice I am what I am today.

“Why does one choose a creative path over a logical path?”

I think most people would choose a creative career over a logical type career if they had the skill set to do so. How many accountants would rather be rock stars? Tons. How many rock stars would rather be accountants? Not many. I think that if these accountants had spent years practicing guitar they may have been able to do that, but maybe their passion wasn’t nutured when they were young or they just didn’t have enough drive. Or maybe the competition was too intimidating, so for whatever reason they did what seemed easier (ie. got an office job) and gave up on their dreams. And FTR they are probably more financially stable for that decision. !
davpunk

Says:

December 18th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

well it seems like we will all have to agree to disagree. There isnt a “right” answer to this, but yes, financial stability has nothing to do with chasing the dream to be a rockstar or whatever it may be. That is what stops dreams. Fear. Comfort. Lack of Ambition.
OB1

Says:

December 18th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

“well it seems like we will all have to agree to disagree. There isnt a “right” answer to this, but yes, financial stability has nothing to do with chasing the dream to be a rockstar or whatever it may be. That is what stops dreams. Fear. Comfort. Lack of Ambition.”

You’re right. It really is like arguing Evolution vs Creationism, people will never see eye to eye. My point above was that when you are a child you tend to be more creative and as you get older and more jaded you become more logical. I believe great artists still possess that childlike state of mind and if you stick with art, music, writing etc. you can be succesful. I think everyone has that opportunity if they work hard enough at it, it’s not just those with “talent” as you put it.
Doug C.

Says:

December 22nd, 2007 at 1:39 am

I totally agree. As Stephen King said in his book On writing, “A good writer can become better, but a bad writer can never become good.” You’re either born with the talent to write (or draw, or paint, etc.) or your not.
matt

Says:

January 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 am

I am a young art student, studying illustration, and i disagree that anyone is born with talent. I do believe that people can be born with the want to pursue art, or are born into circumstances, that give them that want. I have played many sports and am pretty alright at a lot of things. Friends tell me that I am a “very talented” person. I dissagree. I am just a person (because of many different influences in my life) that wants to be the better than the rest. No matter what I do, I work hard at it, because of that want to be better. That want is what drives me and makes people believe I have talent.

Now, I would not say I am great at any one thing, but I am going to school right now for illustration, (because it was the only option that sounded fun to me when I was a senior in highschool) and I believe that if I dedicate enough time, to it, I will become great at it. I have always felt that I could be great at anything, if I truly wanted to be. I believe that there is always a way to be great at something, with time and dedication. This is partly due to my parents making enough money to support whatever it is I do. I feel that anyone can be great at anything if they want it bad enough. I have often thought about the people who complain at school about not being able to afford supplies and such, and thought that if they really wanted to, they can get a better job, take out more loans, or stop spending money on other non esential things.

I have often told friends when playing basketball (I am no good at the sport) that if I really wanted to, I could be very good at the game in a few years. If had the money and the drive to do nothing but play basketball, read about basketball, watch basketball, work out, and eat, sleep, and bathe right every day all day for 3 years, I would be a great basketball player. now, physical disabilities are another thing. being born say, without arms, is a circumstance that will keep you from being a great basketball player, as well as being born into a house with no money and a family that makes you work all day to put food on the table. If people are in the right circumstanses, and have anough want to be or do something great, they can be.

as an illustration student, I used to feel that the other students with all the great ideas had more talent than I did, but then I started reading more, and looking at more artists, and exploring pictures and now I have an expanded imagination with more greater ideas.

I am not much of a writer, so this response might get off topic and maybe not make sense, but if I really wanted to, I could study a bit and make it better.
matt

Says:

January 3rd, 2008 at 5:20 am

Doug C, I strongly disagree with you and Stephen King
Joe Mills » Born with Creativity

Says:

January 9th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

[…] came across the argument recently on Drawn. It sites two blogs with opposing view points. One argues that it is God-given while Von Allen vehemently disagrees. There are many sides to this […]
Doug C.

Says:

February 2nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm

As Remy said in the movie Ratatouille, “Yeah, anyone can cook. That doesn’t mean anyone should.”

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