Art & Fear

Art & Fear by David Bayels and Ted Orland

There are a few quotes that stood out as i read this article. The first one that caught my attention was about talent. "There is probably no clearer waste of psychic energy than worrying about how much talent you have--and probably no worry more common. that is true even among artists of considerable accomplishment."

I have had problems throughout the years concerning if I had enough talent as an artist. I would get discouraged if i got stuck, or was having a hard time accomplishing something. At one point I was worried if I would even get in to college. I would come to such blanks when making my portfolio, that I was worried that I had no actual talent at all. I learned that worrying and procrastinating about it was the worst thing to do, and that just attempting was better than nothing.

Another quote that I found interesting in the article Art & Fear was on perfection. "The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. all those on the left side of the studio, he said would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality...Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works with highest quality were produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work--and learning from their mistakes--the "quality" group sat theorizing about perfection, and int he end had little more to show or their efforts than grandiose theories and and a pile of dead clay"

I love this quote because it proves a very good point. Every good artist wants perfection in their work. However, rarely comes the time where they will get it on their first time. This used to happen to me every time I would want a perfect oil painting. I would get frustrated because I wanted pefection, when really I should not have been over analyzing anything. However, a very similar instance with that Ceramics class happened to me recently, in Sculpure class. I had to make a bunch of mini books for a project. The first books were the worst looking things I had ever seen. If I had originally tried to make only one, that was perfect, I have a feeling that would not have happened. However, after I had made the 10th mini book, the quality had improved incredibly.

A third quote that spoke to me was in the section "Expectations." "Conversely, expectations based on the work itself are the most useful took the artist possesses. What you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about yuou r materials is in the last use of you rmaterials. The place to learb about uour execution is in your execution. The best information about what you love is in your last contact with what you love. Put simply, your work is your guide: complete, comprehensive, limitless reference book on your work. There is noother such book, and it is yours alone."

I agree with this quote, and I am a big believer of learning from mistakes. My favorite part of that quote, although a little cheesy, is when it says that artwork is your own reference book. That idea is a good way to think about past pieces, and I have had that happen to me through my painting. Over the past year, I had been unsatisfyed with some of my paintings. As I was trying to figure out how to improve my paintings, I realized from my previous paintings that I needed to be more loose and not worry so much about detail and perfection. My teacher in France helped me realize that as I was getting scared to loosen up and really experiment. I got so frustrated with my paintings, and then all a sudden I had a "lightbulb" moment as I decided to trust myself and be loose with my brushstrokes. In the end, there was a huge difference between my paintings from my junior year at Beaver than over the summer, and the fall of senior year. My Junior paintings helped me learn from my mistakes and it has made me a better artist.