since I just heard Mrs Hessās voice echo thunderingly around me like the greybeards, she would like to amend this with āpracticedā in place of ātalentedā.
her Talent Rant was a thing of beauty and I wish i had a recording of it. i get the feeling expressed here, i do! and i do agree that people are differently good at different things, if thatās how weāre defining talent.
but i was surrounded by some incredibly talented artists growing up, and i looked at their art, looked at mine, and went āwelp i have no talent for drawing.ā but what my friends hadnāt had was an abusive first grade teacher who flat-out told me that i had no talent for art, i had no business wasting my time writing and drawing, and i was a terrible child for wasting my parentsā hardwon money on such fantasy.
and i stopped. the only time i drew was when it was demanded of me in an art class, i wrote stories only in my head.
my sixth grade art teacher tried really hard to pull me out of that, but it wasnāt until i had her again in eighth grade that i started to listen to her.
even then, i would say āiām not good at drawing, but thatās ok, nobodyās gonna see it anywayā and i would never accept any compliment on it. āoh man you should see (insert friend here) theyāre so much better than mineā etc. their art came from talent, in my eyes; i couldnāt make art like theirs, so i didnāt have any talent.
enter Mrs Hess.
Mrs Hess, slightly terrifying, very intimidating, kind of the McGonagall of the art department at my high school, somehow got that whole sob story out of me on like week one of the art fundamentals class. i remember sitting at my desk crying because iād cried on my paper and wrecked a piece of nice paper and upset my teacher. She took me to the nurseās office, told me sheād sign me off if i wanted to go home, or i could rest for the remainder of the block.
She took attendance a few days later like normal and then sat on her desk (which she Did Not Do) and gave us the Talent Rant.
it started with holding up Willās self-portrait. Will was well on his way to photorealism. his looked like a black and white photo. She asked us how we thought heād drawn it. talent, we decided. Will was just better than us. she then said āWill is becoming a very skilled artist, but his talent is not what is making that possible.ā and asked him when he first started drawing. Will shrugged and said he didnāt remember, but heād gotten in trouble for drawing in class since ever. she nodded. āand youāre sixteen?ā he agreed. āso youāve been practicing drawing with pencils for more than ten years, then.ā
we were all kind of taken aback. she looked at us and said āyouāre five or six when you start school, right? and heās sixteen now. sixteen minus six- i know Iām your art teacher, but i still know thatās ten.ā
then she asked Stephen if she could show his. it was obviously a beginnerās effort. she then asked for one of his caricatures (he drew comics, caricatures of teachers and events for the school paper & stuff.)
she held them up side-by-side and asked us if we would say this was a talented artist, if we didnāt know they were both from the same person. before we responded, she asked Stephen how long heād been making comics- his answer, similar to Willās. āand how long have you been making drawings like this (showing self-portrait)?ā Stephen: āuh, when did you assign it? like a day after that.ā
she held forward the caricature. āten years of practice.ā
then she held forward the self-portrait. āthree days of practice.ā
she gave his stuff back and sat back on her desk, just kind of watched us in silence for a moment.
āTalent is bullshit. What you think of as Talent is practice. Donāt ever write yourself off as being bad at something because you canāt do it well the second you pick it up. If you donāt want to put in the time to train yourself in something, donāt. that is entirely okay and entirely your choice. but giving up solely because you donāt think youāre talented enough to pursue something is a great disservice to yourself. if you take one thing from this class, i want it to be that.ā
she had a longer, more nuanced version of it, of course. the only part i remember verbatim is the start of ātalent is bullshitā because itās always shocking when your teachers swear for the first time.
but i had never considered the idea that i was so many years of practice behind those friends whose art i admire so much.
We donāt teach kids how to read and then expect them to read War and Peace- that doesnāt mean that there arenāt seven year olds who can read War and Peace, but we donāt tell the rest of them that they have no talent for reading because they canāt yet do so. when a kid says āiām no good at readingā we say āyou just need practiceā but when a kid says 'iām no good at drawingā we say things like 'everybodyās good at different things, and thatās ok.ā which, yes; thatās a good sentiment to teach. but we have this view of art and music like itās a binary- either youāre good at them or youāre not, and we donāt challenge it the way we do with other things.
jacobvanloon
stormborns
vaporwave
discoholicmusic
areudirty
pixelskylines
2087
blakekathryn
