How Not to ‘Win’ Your Painting

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut liked to tell a story about something someone said to him as a fifteen-year-old kid that eventually enabled him to become the imaginative writer he became. He was on an archeological dig one summer during high school and one of the anthropologists was asking him the kind of “getting to know you” questions adults tend to ask young people: ‘Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject in school, etc.’ I’ll let Vonnegut tell the rest in his own words:

“And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: ‘I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.’

“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in an achievement-0oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘win’ at them.”

Sherrie McGraw, The Old Codger, oil, 14×12 inches

Such a bird’s eye view of creativity is so hard to have and hold onto but so helpful – it’s like a breath of fresh air for an exhausted swimmer. Chances are you aren’t “just” an oil painter or a pastellist or what have you; you’re also a friend, or someone’s helper, or maybe you garden, or crochet, play an instrument (or used to?), or maybe you teach, write, sing, tell great stories, knit awesome scarves, or make people laugh. These are indeed wonderful experiences, each of which develops “different skills that teach you things and make you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

I guess the bottom line is, find the things that you like to do and do them because you like to do them. Being an artist is something you do rather than something you are.

As children we’re fearless artists because we enjoy doing it rather than enjoying being good at it. Children don’t worry about whether they’re “talented.” They just like to make stuff. They all know magic is real, the world is marvelous, and living each day is an adventure. Art brings back some of that magic. The fearlessly creative child we all have been is waiting patiently to be let back into the room.

Art isn’t just about being good at something. But when you find out what you like doing, you often discover what you are good at.

Cherrie McGraw, Remains of the Day, watercolor on board

This also means that, contrary to popular misconceptions, creativity is not just for people “talented enough” to make things everyone agrees are “good.” Nor do you need to invent things out of “nowhere” (or some mysterious generative power of genius).

Never be afraid to use the already existing as a steppingstone to new ideas. The creative process is always about starting with what other people are doing. Artists take bits and pieces of things they like from here there and everywhere. Sometimes through sudden insight (inspiration) and more often through a lengthy process of trial and error, we put them together in new ways and out of that comes something new.

The goal isn’t to be “good,” it’s to be creative. “Being good” inevitably results from doing something over and over because you enjoy the process of doing it as well as learning about it, practicing it, and getting better all the time.