The Forum's Art Museum

[Jitter]

Well, in that case, good that you don't have unlimited power! I would prefer not to have Ungoliant jumping around

Creativity often comes with a price. Maybe it's something about the wiring in a creative brain that makes us more susceptible for the bad feels. Mine aren't usually as extreme as what you described although I have been in the "hope the kids are all right watching telly when I lie down in the dark room" situation, but at least that is not the norm for me. But we all know the great artists' suffering, ear-cutting comes to mind. Let's be happy we have somewhat less talent and hopefully somewhat less suffering.

Anyways my point was exactly what you said yourself: everybody wins, when you get make art and we get to enjoy it Thank you!

[tehta]

As Jitter said, let's not argue. But I would also include another thing in (visual) artistic talent, and that is the ability to see things in a way that is worth representing. This can hopefully be taught too, but I feel like you definitely have it.

[moredhel]

Does not everyone* have a sense of beauty and aesthetics? Everyone wants things to be pretty nobody has the bare walls in their home everyone has some wallpaper, paint, plastering or something similar. We do not agree on the nature of beauty but everyone is seeking it.

*in my opinion if we use a loose definition of beauty that includes harmony and music too we can use a very wide definition of everyone. E. g. there is a genre of videos on youtube where people bring pianos to zoos or the asian countryside and plying some music and the elephants do enjoy the music. (this comparison is harder to do for visual arts because most animals where we can make an informed guess un their feelings do not see colors).

[moredhel]

Wanted to add something for clarification why I have an issue with talent. Talent is something you do have or not it is pure chance. But I am proud of what I achieved because I did put some effort in it. I do try to draw pretty things since I was 3 years old. There were some interruptions but I practiced this for years, Even as a kid and kids can have a attention span below zero. I did use up loads of pencils I filled literally thousands of pages. And when someone says it is done with talent that feels like it is devaluating my work. For sure you all can not know this so sorry to everyone for being a weirdo about this.

[Vulpes]

Wanted to add something for clarification why I have an issue with talent. Talent is something you do have or not it is pure chance. But I am proud of what I achieved because I did put some effort in it. I do try to draw pretty things since I was 3 years old. There were some interruptions but I practiced this for years, Even as a kid and kids can have a attention span below zero. I did use up loads of pencils I filled literally thousands of pages. And when someone says it is done with talent that feels like it is devaluating my work. For sure you all can not know this so sorry to everyone for being a weirdo about this.

I just caught up with this discussion, and I think you hit on something really important here. I would argue that most people, given sufficient motivation, can produce excellent art/music/whatever thing they do, but only with great effort. A lucky few have talent, whatever that is, and can (for example) pick up pens and draw apparently without effort. So for the vast majority of people, it is insulting to say they're talented, because their "talent" is the result of many hours of practice, driven by their desire to express themselves. Thanks for pointing that out.

I am, in the words of a colleague, "a proud dilettante". He meant it as an insult - not directed at me personally, but in general at anyone who dabbles in this and that - but I've taken it as a badge of honour. I have, at various times, been serious about playing cello, competitive bicycling, black-and-white photography including developing and printing my work, sailing, digital photography including post-processing, swimming... the list goes on. I've never excelled at any of them. I have got pretty good at them all, and in some cases might be considered "a natural", in the sense that I did pretty well without putting a great deal of effort in. But there's the key - I didn't put in the effort, the 10,000 hours of practice, to become excellent. So nobody called me a talented cellist, cyclist, photographer, etc. I don't know if they ever would have, had I put in the effort, but I didn't so we'll never know! 

I have the greatest respect for anyone who actually devotes the time to mastering something, and will try from now on to remember not to call them talented! But I also value my broad range of skills and experience, and don't regret having dabbled in so many things. I enjoy string quartets all the more knowing the challenges of playing a string instrument, even if I don't play any more. I appreciate a skillfully composed and retouched photograph precisely because I know I could do a half-arsed job of it and am impressed by the devotion someone had to do it well. I think both groups - the focused, who work hard to become excellent, and the dilettantes who try everything that catches their fancy - are important to keeping the world ticking along.

Sorry about the wall of text, I thought it was such a good point and it got me thinking about talent vs effort, my colleague's insult, and valuing different ways of being, so I started "thinking with my fingers".

TL;DR - good point moredhel, what looks like raw talent is usually hard effort.

[Róisín]

There is always that balance of talent and application. Not easy! It is the people who have both who become the real masters. Mind you, I speak as someone who has a passion for art, who knows clearly what I want to make and exactly how it should look,  but for whom no amount of application, practice and hard work can make the art actually work. Whereas my youngest son started drawing as soon as he could physically hold a pencil, and spent the time from about age two to age four drawing cows coming or going, people walking toward and away, and such like things, until he had worked out perspective for himself. I watched the process happening and was amazed, but could not emulate that process. Music and plants came to him in the same way.

One of the younger cousins had the same thing with music. We would introduce him to some instrument he had never heard of before (including, to my amazement, one of the early electronic synthesizers), and in a few weeks he would be playing it well enough to be pleasant to listen to, and in a few months he would be playing it on stage.

For me it was plants. Learning a new plant always felt like being reminded rather than taking on new information. But I never cease to be amazed by the people who can do that with art!

[moredhel]

I have the greatest respect for anyone who actually devotes the time to mastering something, and will try from now on to remember not to call them talented!

I don't know if that should be a general rule. Maybe some of them like to be called talented.

But I also value my broad range of skills and experience, and don't regret having dabbled in so many things. I enjoy string quartets all the more knowing the challenges of playing a string instrument, even if I don't play any more. I appreciate a skillfully composed and retouched photograph precisely because I know I could do a half-arsed job of it and am impressed by the devotion someone had to do it well. /quote]
The ability to appreciate things more with growing knowledge might be the reason why in renaissance people believed that for ideal personal development you should have learned in all fields that are there. It is no longer possible to really master every field but I personally believe it still is a good idea.

I think both groups - the focused, who work hard to become excellent, and the dilettantes who try everything that catches their fancy - are important to keeping the world ticking along.

For sure if we all tried everything in the same way world would be a horrible place.
[/quote]

Sorry about the wall of text, I thought it was such a good point and it got me thinking about talent vs effort, my colleague's insult, and valuing different ways of being, so I started "thinking with my fingers".

I at least liked very much to read it.

There is always that balance of talent and application. Not easy! It is the people who have both who become the real masters.

For sure. To become a master you need the talent and the madness to dedicate your life to it.

Mind you, I speak as someone who has a passion for art, who knows clearly what I want to make and exactly how it should look,  but for whom no amount of application, practice and hard work can make the art actually work.

It is possible with enough practice to make the difference between how it should look and how it is less painful.

Whereas my youngest son started drawing as soon as he could physically hold a pencil, and spent the time from about age two to age four drawing cows coming or going, people walking toward and away, and such like things, until he had worked out perspective for himself. I watched the process happening and was amazed, but could not emulate that process. Music and plants came to him in the same way.

Perspective and composition are hard. that is the reason why so many people and things in drawings have to exist in a white void.

One of the younger cousins had the same thing with music. We would introduce him to some instrument he had never heard of before (including, to my amazement, one of the early electronic synthesizers), and in a few weeks he would be playing it well enough to be pleasant to listen to, and in a few months he would be playing it on stage.

For me it was plants. Learning a new plant always felt like being reminded rather than taking on new information.

This sounds like a really great expierience.

[tehta]

I would like to be told that I have talent! In the representational arts.

My reasoning for this is as follows: I would like to know that things are not hopeless, and I will get somewhere someday. I had the opposite experience with music: I played the flute for many years,  and I can technically read music and produce the right sounds, but cannot do anything creative, or even play back things played at me without a huge intellectual effort. So, a complete anti-talent. I feel a bit better about painting and drawing: at least some aspects do feel intuitive (after a bunch of practice, but still).

So, Moredhel, when i said I see talent in your drawings, what I meant is that they give me a very different vibe than my belaboured flute-playing.

[moredhel]

There is always that balance of talent and application. Not easy! It is the people who have both who become the real masters.

This is sad when I think about it. All the wasted talent. What Music could we have with a second Bach? What plays where there with a second Shakespeare? Where would science and technology be with a second Newton? Chances are these geniuses existed but never learned anything about composition, mathematics, physics or even writing because they were women.

[Róisín]

So many women, so few who make it even as far as did, for example, Artemisia Gentileschi. Then there are all those people born in places and times where there is nothing through which to express their talent, or the technology does not exist, or…..

[wavewright62]

and then there's yesterday's Urban Sketchers session, at St Kevin's Arcade in Auckland.  I think it's a bit of a dog's breakfast, but gets some of the vibe of a Saturday afternoon coffee meet-up.

[Róisín]

I do like that, and never cease to be amazed at people who can draw! Nice how you have caught that relaxed body language of people enjoying a friendly chat and catchup. Very Saturday afternoon coffee atmospheric.

[Lazerbird]

I love your style, it really captures the mood of the cafe

[Mirasol]

I´m finally caught up with this thread again, and I enjoyed the talent-discussion immensely.
I must admit I´m a bit torn on it. I enjoy to be called talented. I have been told I was talented with drawing and music when I was little, and it motivated me to keep going. But I´m by now very aware that without the resulting amount of practice I put into it, I would never have reached my current skill-level. There are many aspects of art you simply have to learn to do well (and I still have to learn a lot of them). And then I look at things I´ve given up on thinking myself hopeless and talent-free... "Talent" is really something you shouldn´t get too hung up on if you still enjoy doing something. Especially when it´s regarding something you really can´t objectively judge, like art.
At this point I get a bit of a mixture between flattered and angry when someone ascribes all the work I put into something to talent. Maybe it was there to begin with, maybe not, but it wasn´t what brought me to this point. There were many hours of practice here!

And let me join in on Jitter´s rant at moredhel´s kindergarden, because why would you tell a kid that they´re untalented at art??? Art, music and so on are such wonderfull passtimes and ways of expression, why would you actively demotivate someone to find comfort in it!?

And speaking of Jitter, I remembered the other day that I never posted the comission I drew for her here. It was very fun to do, though I´m afraid it´ll stay the only commission I take/took for now, as I´m quite busy at the moment (training to become a 3D-Artist! Hence the whole talent-discussion hitting a bit close to home right now. :'D So much practice necessary, but very fun!)



And I do very much enjoy your urban sketches, Wave! You always manage to capture people´s expressions so well, and directly with pens no less!? (much too daunting for me, I need my pencils, what if I mess something up... ^^' But it looks so effortless when you do it!)

[Jitter]

Oooh   my lovely teatime has found its way here! Thank you again, Mirasol! I have yet to frame it properly, but it is on the wall in our dining room!