....and so I want to encourage young and beginning potters that the prompting to scribble outside the lines is the "after" picture. And I'm not thus encouraging them because I want them to pursue the craft. I'm doing it because it is my sense that that is what they want to pursue.
It's my sense that most people are asking how they might acquire the tools with which to be creative.
And I suspect that is at least in part true because they have the will to create -- they want to write, they want to paint, they want to play music -- but don't know how to get a foot in those doors. All of the skills are still a mystery. They feel a sense that they want to put something out there into the world, but they don't know how.
And I'm not talking about the romantics who wish they were a writer, wish they were a painter, wish they were a musician. I'm talking about the folks who want to do it. I suspect that for them the suggestion to simply scribble outside the lines is more of a deterrent than it is an encouragement.
To some extent perhaps the only clarification necessary is the clarification of goals. What does a person really want as the end result of the endeavor.
It was my experience as a wannabe athlete for most of my youth that if you took (for instance) two 12 year old boys who had never held a racquet and set them to a game of tennis -- the one with a basic course in the proper way to hold the racquet, a proper forehand and a backhand, a proper serve, and the strict instruction that this is how tennis is "done" -- and the other you simply told "use this racquet to hit the ball over the net and between the lines and don't ever let a ball bounce twice on your side...
...basic athletic ability being equal, the second boy would win the match. That is, the goal is often more important than the skill to get there. On the other hand, once the first boy's skills start to improve, he will eventually overtake the second boy. There is an objective reason why the proper means of doing something develop over time.
...oh, you can't have one
You can't have one
You can't have one
Without the other
I think that why there's yet another phenomenon in the creativity/skill conundrum:
When older people decide to take up a creative endeavor they fight an uphill battle against diminishing physical capability and the time required to learn a skill when compared to youthful counterparts. On the other hand, they often have a more refined sense of goal. They have more educated tastes, and they aren't quite as fooled by mindless meanderings.
No comments:
Post a Comment