What better subject to tackle than one of the most perennial questions that crops up around making art: can talent be acquired, or is it simply a gift delivered at birth?
What can be taught
As a writer, you can learn about the structure of a sentence, the role of voice in the story or how tense impacts your understanding of the narrative. As a painter, you can learn colour theory, perspective and perhaps how to look at things in a way that makes them meaningful to place on a page. As a filmmaker, you will need to understand something about the role of the camera, light, editing. And so on and so forth. All of these component parts are things we deem technical. They are the craft of the thing.
Will technical mastery mean that you make a great film or write a great novel? Of course not.
Here’s where the mystery of talent often comes into play. If someone is talented, they have somehow acquired mastery over many of these things, seemingly by ‘nature’. But they might have also acquired something else: something I think of as taste. This is an aesthetic sense - a sense of what works and what doesn’t; an abstract quality of style and substance meeting; a glimmer of something bigger than any one person. Or perhaps it is an understanding of how to convey humanness, or truth. All of these elements might be argued to form part of ‘taste’. But what is good taste? And who gets to have it?
I like this quote from Ira Glass:
All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit… It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions… It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
The idea that talent (and by extension, taste) is inherent, suggests that there is no work or effort involved in the process of getting good. This idea just doesn’t hold true. Everyone sucks at the beginning. Even the greatest talent must, at some point, sit the heck down and learn why some things work and other things don’t. And if it is our taste - or just our appetite for beauty, perhaps - that has got us into this business in the first place, then there are two things to consider:
This might reassure us that we have ‘the thing’ that can make us great. And…
This isn’t a guarantee of greatness. You have it, and it is meaningless without work.
Bayles & Orland suggest that the fatalism accompanying the complaint ‘I’m not talented enough’ is one that merely masks fear. It is…
…the fear that your fate is in your own hands, but that your hands are weak.
That is a legitimate fear, and one that will be tested as you start to create. But there’s hope if you have the stomach for it. Here’s why:
Art is made by ordinary people.
For so long, we have attached vast spiritual significance to the artist, making them beyond-human. Talent folds neatly into this view. And yet, it is mere humans who make art. Humans who are born, grow up, and spend time on things. The things they cultivate are the things that normally come to fruition.
What cannot be taught
There are other qualities to great artists other than ‘talent’. I would argue that they include the following: Openness. Curiosity. Love. Can these things be taught?
I think of these qualities as speaking to a willingness to be vulnerable, and to be open to the experiences of the world and its people. I have found that people who choose to be closed often remain so out of fear. Being closed to the world, disinterested in its details, doesn’t necessarily guarantee making bad art. But I think it certainly puts you at a disadvantage. Who is the art for, if not for yourself or your fellow human? If art is made by ordinary people, it is also generally made for ordinary people. This will require you to observe and contemplate without fear. Susan Sontag’s infamous advice to writers was this:
Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.
Love and attention applies in all art forms, I think. It seems as though the best artists are not spending all their time talking over people, staring brainlessly into their phones, or barrelling headfirst with their blinders on to get from point A to point B (at least, not all of the time). They look around, they are listening. They are curious and attentive. Here’s another quote from a fav, Natalie Goldberg:
We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close.
The closed mind can’t find the extraordinary in the ordinary. The uncurious person has no need to explore a concept through the pursuit of artistry. The question is just not compelling enough.
And on the matter of love: we need to at least love our chosen medium. You can certainly nurture affection for something, but deep love must develop in its own way, in its own time. Nothing short of love will do, though. The frustrations and setbacks will test you, and only love has the power to combat this. Our love for the work keeps us coming back, no matter how many times it breaks our heart. And finally, to quote James Baldwin:
Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.
Ultimately, endurance will win out. Here is where your stomach will be tested. How many more failures will you endure? How many more setbacks? And what will you do about them?
What you end up doing is what counts
To the critic, art is a noun... To the artist, art is a verb.
Art & Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland
Art is a practice. As I’ve suggested here, there are, I think, more tangible and less tangible qualities to this concept of ‘talent’ most of which certainly can be acquired. But only if you really wish to acquire them. While I think this leaves open some possibility that we all can have access, I would temper this notion by agreeing with Schopenhauer:
Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will
(One can choose what to do, but not what to want).
Nobody can make you want to be curious. Nobody can make you want to listen and pay attention. You have to want that. Can you be taught to want this path? No. You feel it, or you don’t. But then, if you do feel it, you must choose what to do about it. From this, true love for a lifetime can follow - if you have the endurance for it. The process can last for as long as you choose to keep using art to understand your world.
The big takeaway, to my mind, is this: If this is something you want, you owe yourself the chance to try, to see how weak your hands really are. I leave you with the classic quote from Mary Oliver:
The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
Weekly extras and joys to share… 🌿
Scenes from a plant addict’s home
The thing that is giving me the most joy right now isn’t my practice at all. I happen to be a very keen gardener, and though it is a tad early, I’ve got into my seed sowing regime this week with gusto. With an upcoming trip to Australia on the horizon, I hope to get my babies growing strong enough to endure while I’m away.
When the writing gets tough, nothing soothes me like fucking up all my carefully manicured nails by plunging my hands into some soil. I think all of us need a ‘low-stakes’ outlet - in a way this speak to Einstein’s concept of ‘combinatory play’. Something else that you do which is playful, an experiment, or just a place where your main gig isn’t the focus.
As I’ve talked about before, your art can become synonymous with who you are. That’s fraught, sometimes. But while I love my garden, I don’t attach the same stakes to failure. And perhaps as a result of this, something unique can unfold when I garden. I think. Ideas synthesise. I grow calm and patient. I cultivate qualities that make me better, all round.
What is your ‘low stakes’ outlet?
Until next week,
Be well.
CCx