Wednesday
Jan042012
It's Not New and I Can't Draw
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 5:07PM
Here are two statements that I'm tired of hearing:
1. When people are talking to me about drawing and they say, "I can't even draw a straight line."
2. And the statement, "It's all been done before."
Okay, 1. is easy. Straight lines are BORING! If you can't draw a straight line then that is really, really good!! Look in nature, do you see any straight lines out there? No. Maybe there are some, but I don't see them. Draw some crooked lines, they are much more interesting and fun and full of energy. The next time someone says this to me I'm going to tell them that. *
Okay, 2. seems to be something I hear from artists over and over. Is it really true that it's ALL been done before?? I'm just asking? It seems to me that it all HASN'T been done before, I mean Twitter was a new thing right? And this candle holder by Josh Redman is like no other I've ever seen.
There are loads of things that haven't been done. We don't know what they are because they don't exist yet.
When I first read the statement "Nothing is Original" on Austin Kleon's blog yesterday it made me angry. I thought he shouldn't be saying this, but he goes on to say that most new things are a mashup of other older/existing things.
I guess that's probably true. As an artist I'd say all of what I make has elements of existing work in it. But once it's out there, in whole, it's a new thing right? and it probably hasn't been done exactly like I did it. So it's New. No one has my hands, or kicks the wheel just like I do, or whatever, so it has to be original in that way. Maybe? ?
The word original comes from the root origin. So to be original should there be only one origin? I don't know, it seems like small potatoes to me. New and Original aren't the same thing are they?
I think there are certainly original things out there. Just as an example, if I pick up a ball of clay and go out and throw it at a tree and it sticks to the tree then the resulting piece of clay that eventually comes off will be something unique and original won't it? I mean I won't be the first person to throw clay at a tree but the finished bit will be original.
I don't know, I'm just rambling on, I'm no logician or philosopher. Here's my real point:
The following are some things that I think are the meanings behind statements 1. and 2.
(pick as many as you like)
I am afraid to draw.
I think my drawings are crap.
Someone once told me my drawings were crap and I believe them.
I'm too afraid to do any work.
I'm going to put my work down because then it makes me feel better.
I am comparing my work to someone else's and I feel like a total loser.
If I try something then someone will judge me and I'll die.
Saying it's been done before gets me off the hook.
Saying it's been done gives me permission to not try harder.
There are others. I know some of these by heart b/c I've said them in one form or another.
So I just wanted to get that down here. I'm sure I could have polished this up a bit but I never do that. So maybe we'll discuss this a little (or not). I can always just put up some images of my cups.
*And please don't tell me you can only draw stick figures. Stick figures are really quite neat. (esp. when animated and fighting w. swords)
1. When people are talking to me about drawing and they say, "I can't even draw a straight line."
2. And the statement, "It's all been done before."
Okay, 1. is easy. Straight lines are BORING! If you can't draw a straight line then that is really, really good!! Look in nature, do you see any straight lines out there? No. Maybe there are some, but I don't see them. Draw some crooked lines, they are much more interesting and fun and full of energy. The next time someone says this to me I'm going to tell them that. *
Here are some wonderful lines by Cy Twombly
Okay, 2. seems to be something I hear from artists over and over. Is it really true that it's ALL been done before?? I'm just asking? It seems to me that it all HASN'T been done before, I mean Twitter was a new thing right? And this candle holder by Josh Redman is like no other I've ever seen.
There are loads of things that haven't been done. We don't know what they are because they don't exist yet.
When I first read the statement "Nothing is Original" on Austin Kleon's blog yesterday it made me angry. I thought he shouldn't be saying this, but he goes on to say that most new things are a mashup of other older/existing things.
I guess that's probably true. As an artist I'd say all of what I make has elements of existing work in it. But once it's out there, in whole, it's a new thing right? and it probably hasn't been done exactly like I did it. So it's New. No one has my hands, or kicks the wheel just like I do, or whatever, so it has to be original in that way. Maybe? ?
The word original comes from the root origin. So to be original should there be only one origin? I don't know, it seems like small potatoes to me. New and Original aren't the same thing are they?
I think there are certainly original things out there. Just as an example, if I pick up a ball of clay and go out and throw it at a tree and it sticks to the tree then the resulting piece of clay that eventually comes off will be something unique and original won't it? I mean I won't be the first person to throw clay at a tree but the finished bit will be original.
I don't know, I'm just rambling on, I'm no logician or philosopher. Here's my real point:
The following are some things that I think are the meanings behind statements 1. and 2.
(pick as many as you like)
I am afraid to draw.
I think my drawings are crap.
Someone once told me my drawings were crap and I believe them.
I'm too afraid to do any work.
I'm going to put my work down because then it makes me feel better.
I am comparing my work to someone else's and I feel like a total loser.
If I try something then someone will judge me and I'll die.
Saying it's been done before gets me off the hook.
Saying it's been done gives me permission to not try harder.
There are others. I know some of these by heart b/c I've said them in one form or another.
So I just wanted to get that down here. I'm sure I could have polished this up a bit but I never do that. So maybe we'll discuss this a little (or not). I can always just put up some images of my cups.
*And please don't tell me you can only draw stick figures. Stick figures are really quite neat. (esp. when animated and fighting w. swords)
Reader Comments (22)
Well I can tell you that if you say you can't draw enough times - that becomes your truth and it's hard to change.
And I think the use of the word 'original' in the art world should be eliminated. And the new word should be 'authentic.' If you are truly authentic, originality doesn't matter.
Exactly right Judy! That goes for many things we may be telling ourselves.
I like the idea about authenticity. I don't really have a connection to the art world and I'm glad for that. It seems like a pretty messed up place. I do think that being true to ourselves is the goal to shoot for. It's not easy and takes loads of work and practice (and therapy sometimes).
Ron, you are spot on here and if I weren't mentally exhausted from the drama around my house right now, I could expand on your thoughts. Maybe I'll come back one day when my brain is clear! Good points though :)
good post ron- good things to think about- i ike just making pots and i plan to continue as long as i can
Things that seem new are often based upon ideas that other people have thought of before. This doesn't make them wrong or unworthy. It's just.... human, I guess. I love Judy's suggestion of replacing that overused word, origninal, with authentic. No one can draw like you. Or I. No one can make your pots because no one else is you. They don't have your hands, or your heart, or your voice.
I think about this in regards to music often. We are all just rearranging the same notes. But you can tell when music is authentic. Even when the tunes are not original. One of my favourite fiddlers is Martin Hayes. The Irish tunes he grew up playing may not be original, or not originally his, but when he plays them they are authentically his. There is no denying that something new and authentic is coming from that instrument he holds near his heart. On the other hand there are folks who don't want original, they want pure and traditional. I'm sure that comes up in pottery as well.
Great stuff Ron!
My take on this is that folks who say they can't draw are making a claim about who they authentically ARE: Non-drawers. And of course this is ridiculous, as you point out. They may not know very much about drawing right now, but with a little practice they could actually learn to enjoy it.
The truth is that we can learn so many new things, and express ourselves in vastly different ways. We are not fixed creatures. We can change things up without even trying, and we can set off on new adventures at a moment's notice. And if you are evolving and growing the change never stops. So why are we so often obsessed with having one particular voice, with being one trick ponies, 'non-drawers' and 'non-this, that and the other'? I can't tell you how many students come to my beginning classes saying that they aren't really creative, that they are not artists. But the truth is that they WERE as kids, and this was never an issue back then.
And that's why I think the idea of being 'authentic' has some problems. In the end what does it really matter as long as you are enjoying what you do? If you want to change, change. If you don't, don't. But don't feel that 'being authentic' means you have to live up to some level of consistency. If you want to, fine. But don't let others tell you its something you have to do. Are they doing you a favor?
I also think you are right to question our whole obsession with originality. Like you say, on the one hand how can what we do NOT be original, something new? On the other, I would ask what it really matters. Do the trees and the mountains obsess about this? Does the universe really care whether we did it all our own way, entirely distinct from others? So just why is this supposed to be a big deal?
We don't have to try to be different to be different. It takes much more effort trying to do the same thing, copying, fitting into stereotypes, etc. Kids doodling with crayons are not worried about being original, and they are not worried about taking good ideas from others. Its only as adults that we get fixated on owning our expression, on being unique and original, on being authentically branded. Its as if we think we should go through life with a copyright stamped on our forehead, and a notarized Patent for everything we do. Seems kind of funny to me....
I may be wrong, but I think women are more likely to put themselves down than men. ( I wonder if this is really true...?) Anyway, my husband has a saying: Never compare yourself to others because you will always come out better or worse, not just different. How true.
Hey y'all thanks for all the comments. It's good to have some action happening here on the blog.
Carter, I think you are right in that we shouldn't worry too much about all this and should do our work however we choose. (I like Meredith's comment and think it's true to this).
I don' think this is often the case though. Or maybe I'm just speaking from my own personal experience. I like what Kimbrell says about comparison. Comparing my work or where I was in my work with others was something that really caused me much suffering and distress at one time. I'd often come home from visiting potters in Penland and Sarah would joke that she needed to put me on suicide watch. I got really bummed out by comparing myself to others. Thankfully I've grown a little in the past few years and learned not to do that so much.
Bethany's example of the musician is really great. As a drummer I was never as self conscious as I have been as a potter. Maybe it's b/c it was never my profession, but I ripped off everyone and combined it all into what I wanted when I was behind the drum kit. It could also have been b/c I was young and I didn't give a damn.
Anyway, being authentic/original and unafraid is something that I have struggled with as a potter. What I put out here is usually me hashing through my experiences and thoughts and I appreciate you all joining in.
More later maybe.
Very timely discussion + I think you're right on both counts. I know I've felt some of those same things regarding the clay work I've made in the past (as compared to others) even though I am otherwise a fairly confident person. Expanding Kleon's "steal like an artist", I rather like "Everything is a Remix" http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/. Actually, I like the term mashup better. Everyone brings their own point of view, experience, and aesthetic juju to everything we do, including pottery. ex. making a candle holder isn't original, it's how you do it as long as it's still functional as a candle holder, otherwise it's something else. And, Josh Redman definitely has a unique point of view! I guarantee that everyone who has posted here would make a candle holder differently. I am really rambling (and paraphrasing everything you and others have written), but I guess I want to know why something has to be original as long as it's coming from an individual/authentic place - like Judy mentioned? Out and out copying though is something else. So - yes, someone who say's "It's already been done before" isn't even trying.
One of the best drawing teachers I had started the class by stating that if one can write, one can draw. Obviously, the alphabet is a series of pictures, so . . .
Naomi, I love that, thanks for sharing.
Cynthia, 'aesthetic juju'! Nice. I'm off to check out some videos on the remix blog.
I enjoyed reading your ramblings on these things Ron.
I never think that anything I do is truly original because somewhere, sometime, I must have seen and stored a sight, an object, a pot, a painting, in my mind, pieces which have inspired me in some way. What I make must be full of all the influences that I have absorbed, jumbled memories put together in my own way, so not original but Christine-ifed. I remember Jim Robison talking about a student he had whose first exhibition was just Jim-look-a-like pots. But next time, they had changed and it was just a process the fellow had to go through towards 'finding his own voice'.
Martin Hayes, now yes, folk music maybe, but truly original in interpretation, (plus I swear the man levitates when he plays).
Was it Paul Klee who said that drawing was like taking a pencil for a walk? I always liked that idea, and anyone can go for a walk.
Hey Christine, I know that is certainly true for me too.
I'll think of that Klee quote next time I pick up my pencil/pen.
love your last note ron!! flip books are cool.. i did one last christmas while sitting at the dinner table...why...coz i got a lil note book in the cracker and it seemed apt...stick figures and flip books rule...well at least for 5mins :))
It's all been done before eh? Try and do the same thing twice, that's never been done before.
hey ron, you're always startin' somethin' aren't you. first off, cy twombly is one of my all time faves. i saw a big painting at the chicago art institute when i was younger and it floored me. by the way, i met another painter who had met cy once and was surprised to find out that he claimed that cy pronounced his name toom blee and not twom blee. who knew? i hear the "i can't even draw a straight line" thing a million times and my frustration really is more about not being able to convince the utterer that maybe they're mistaken. it's more than likely that they drew (and drew well) when they were children. as far as the originality thing, i'm not sure i could tackle what i really feel in a comment but suffice to say that i think the people who say that nothing is original do not mean identical as in your example of throwing a ball of clay at a tree. i believe what they mean is that conceptually speaking that all the ideas have been tried and that the obvious small differences between the execution of these ideas are negligible in the scheme of things. maybe the problem is the use of absolutes like "all the ideas" instead of most. if potters perused the southeby's auction house catalogues for antique asian pots, over time i think they would be surprised that they would be hard pressed to come up with a unique shape that's never been attempted and then of course there's that mad biloxi potter. but he's famous simply because his originality was so rare. either way, i'm more curious about why anyone would get upset about some other person's opinion about the state of originality. both statements, about drawing straight lines and nothing being original seem to be two opposite ends of the same idea. on the one end there's the possible complimenting interpretation of "that's really amazing talent you have and i can't imagine what i'd have to do to be able to do that myself" and the other end which seems to be saying that "absolute originality seems impossible considering the overwhelming evidence that almost all things are derived from other things going back in time from imitating others ideas to imitating the nature that surrounds us. personally i'm more curious about the idea that technology will all but eliminate drawing as a human activity.
I'm not sure how technology could eliminate drawing as such - I think they go hand in hand. Writing instruments are of course technological objects in themselves - trying to make a pen or pencil from scratch will prove that. Mechanisation of the drawing process is as old as you like. People were tracing their hands and shadows from way back when. Rulers, compasses, lenses and the camera obscura as essential drawing aids are pretty ancient. Photoshop is a breakthrough as important as the lense (which has a surprisingly ancient history), but it's not an elimination of drawing at all. I think the idea of the untempered genius (a la Van Gogh) versus the cold eye of the photographic camera helped to create this odd distinction between artist and technologist. Nowadays of course, artists can be as technical or as non-technical as they like.
As for originality, that's a really tricky subject and probably impossible to unravel until the exact definition of 'original' in the context of that phrase is agreed upon. In some ways, it's impossible to make something truly unoriginal. Even a perfected industrial product, like say, Coke, does not make the same thing over and over. Each object has its own time and place, its own set of particular histories right down to the subatomic level and time itself distinguishes objects from one another in so many ways. On the other hand, taking a macro perspective and trying to make something truly original without any relation to something else is impossible, because without wanting to appear Buddhist, everything is connected in some way.
Another I get all the time from adults along the same line is "Oh I can't do it, because I'm not very creative" A term that always haunted me and annoyed me, people kept telling me I was and they weren't
I kept trying to explain that theirs was raw creativity that could be harnessed and they didn't know it yet, but most wouldn't listen. The one that eventually did, only did so because I got them to come help at my children's pottery workshop and working with their children helped them see that they could do it too.
That person then came and visited lots of potters in the South West of England, and wants at some point to remake all the pieces that they made at the pottery class.
When it comes to people I can't draw them very well so tend to go for a stick man with volume http://joseph.redfoxpottery.com/2011/01/happy-new-year.html Despite not thinking myself very good, I still love to draw and paint and go outdoors to do it regardless, I do want to get better as my 15 year old self wanted to be a concept designer for Lucas, I still kind of want to do something like that one day, but don't spend enough time working.
Time and effort are the only ways to improve, people never believed that to be the case when I taught them, they just thought I wanted more money.
Great thoughts everyone. I guess I just want everyone who I hear say these things to really think about what they are saying. Yes, we were all probably great and uninhibited drawers as children. I hate that that gets socialized out of us, that as adults we compare what we do with others who are recognized as 'the greats' and that we judge ourselves and our work/art in such the way we do. (I of course am as guilt of this as anyone and it's been a huge struggle of mine).
As far as the originally thing goes I learned quite a bit of how I think about this from reading everyones comments. I think my perception is that every single thing is unique and original. Due to the way it's made, the variables, the material, the unique person, the hands, all these countless things.
Of course I see the influences of everything that has come before and how that all works. And I think I see that as another aspect, not completely original, a re-mix, all connected in a unique way.
So, good stuff, and I will certainly think more about it as I work and read and look at all the amazing (and maybe some not so amazing) things out in my world.
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Hey Ron,
Sorry I'm so late to the dance. I read this at work andwhile was driving home, I heard an interview with Over The Rhine on WYEP.org. She spoke of a tatoo she was inspired to get which was spawned by a conversation about being good, legitimacy-----"Comparison is the thief of Joy." It struck such a note after reading your post and all the responses. It is true, we need to be honest in our work. When we gauge our own ability/success/life/whatever upon someone else's we lose sight of ourselves. Thanks for such great food for thought!
Thanks Christy. I love that quote. It is very, very true.