changes to art thoughts
May. 27th, 2026 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverflight8I've been doing more customizations of things I own by fixing, or decorating, or modifying them. It's been interesting because I think it's a combination of both cultural change as I perceive it, and the changes in my life.
Obviously as a non-vampire who was born after the industrial revolution, mass manufacture for most of the objects I own and am around has always been true. As a child, the things available for purchase were pretty much universally better than things I could cobble together - the adults who made the things, or who designed the machines who then made the item, were just better at it. Better hand and eye control, more design chops, years to get it right, whole design/engineering teams, insights into how people use objects, etc. But as I've gotten older, I've finally, finally managed to move into the phase where I really do believe in myself. In my hands and my brain and my eye. It's been a long journey.
I've come from an upbringing and childhood that was very much centered around achievement and working really hard on things to get them right, artistically and otherwise. And it's not wrong, exactly. There are a lot of things that as an adult and as a child I see require training and practice to do well. Drawing takes a lot of practice. Anatomy takes practice. The difference in control and ability between one year of piano and four are staggering. I'm definitely not suggesting that practice isn't needed to make some great things. It's worth putting in the effort to get good at things because it opens up so much more scope.
But oddly as a child I really thought that I could do a poor best, that I had to try super, super, super hard but even when I did, only the genius best luckiest would ever truly succeed. There are a lot of talented people out there. I never was a big fish in a small pond for long - I knew quite early how big that pond was, it's global. It's very, very, very big. My graduating high school class alone was over 600 people. Try to stand out in that... I think that view was kind of right, but only because in so many of the arts it's so hard to make a living that the visible people who are doing that art, for a living, are both lucky and talented and super hardworking. There is absolutely no room for most. Only the thinnest, tiniest slice.
It took me so many years to not-quite unlearn it, but maybe think past it. For example, my mom sings beautifully. She hasn't had much formal teaching, she can't read music, but functionally speaking there is absolutely nothing wrong with her ability to create art through her voice whatsoever. If the world was different, she has enough skill to have been a musician. It's not talent or skill that excludes her. It was really hard for me to separate the idea - I didn't even know I should, created by this scarcity mindset - that extreme achievement was not the only achievement, that virtuosity did not mean perfection, that perhaps even virtuosity was not the only goal! That even perfection in a single line excluded other goals and might not be everyone's goal. That excellence could be enough, rather than the top #1 forever and ever. That such a thing was impossible and not even a real thing. My parents still kind of do this, with distance I can see it more clearly: they'll send me videos of three pianists playing the same Mozart piece and then ask me who is best. And I can't really get them to understand that I don't really enjoy music that way, that I don't really want to engage in art/'perform fandom' by ranking things. Plus by the time you are a professional concert pianist it's not about best anymore. (Was it ever, except in the weird twisted competition ways we all played into?) They are all extraordinary. Best is meaningless. I think a lot of humans probably have enough artistic talent to create great things. We just don't, because we're not interested, we don't have time, there isn't the same motivation when it's your living, we don't see the point, etc. This fundamental idea that while not everyone can be an exceptional sculptor, so many of us probably could get very good at it if we wanted. "Who is better, Picasso or Caravaggio?" is just not a question I ever think about because it's a question operating on a completely different plane of existence.
I've finally reached a stage of life where I am on the other side of the table, too. It started years ago, when I became a supervisor, I interviewed people, I gave directions, I made decisions. But I went up again, and now there is a lot more decision making at my disposal. Not all my decisions, but a lot more. And it forces an interesting perspective, because every person in power is a human being. Every person I ever looked up to is/was also a human being, like me, who could make mistakes. That's scary, but levelling. The hands I have are not any worse, really, than the average anyone else's; my decision making brainpower is not unequal to theirs. I've always thought, "if one person can discover it, then I can learn it - if I want". I never quite thought of it artistically, that if someone can learn to paint or draw it, then I can too - with sufficient effort and time and practice of course, plus a little luck if it's very difficult. For various reasons I never thought about it that way. I thought I could not draw and I could not paint and the stuff I did with crafts was just lesser. I don't know!
I think it's the realization that success is not always conferred externally from someone(s) deciding you're up to scratch. It's the knowledge internally that you created something good and real. The gatekeeping is very fierce and feedback can be so severe it kind of damages your - my - ability to be confident in my own stuff.
At the same time, there's been a shift culturally around me, saying that the joy of making something is intrinsically a good thing. (I agree!) There's also a parallel drift of thought that if everything is mass manufactured - which also tends to bring the price down - then the not mass manufactured thing has even more value. Both from an artisan-being-paid-for-their-time perspective - which kind of has its own problems in re: what about the human hands in mass manufacture but I digress - but also in a status symbol way. Look at me: I'm rich enough that I can wear this one of a kind unique thing which another human being created for me with their hands. It can't be bought from the shelf because it wasn't made in the millions. It was made for me.
All this to say that I've decided that finally, maybe this belief, that my art isn't good enough, is stupid. Also, who cares if someone can tell I made it. I make damn good stuff, actually. I really do. It was the fear of looking poor and being odd, to customize clothing, but I don't really care if people think that, because it's not relevant. I don't wear it in contexts where it'd be important, either. I don't think I'm going to modify every single thing I own because good grief the effort and I don't feel the urge to, but also if I want to paint a thing I own, I am just gonna go do that. My hands are pretty good, actually.
Obviously as a non-vampire who was born after the industrial revolution, mass manufacture for most of the objects I own and am around has always been true. As a child, the things available for purchase were pretty much universally better than things I could cobble together - the adults who made the things, or who designed the machines who then made the item, were just better at it. Better hand and eye control, more design chops, years to get it right, whole design/engineering teams, insights into how people use objects, etc. But as I've gotten older, I've finally, finally managed to move into the phase where I really do believe in myself. In my hands and my brain and my eye. It's been a long journey.
I've come from an upbringing and childhood that was very much centered around achievement and working really hard on things to get them right, artistically and otherwise. And it's not wrong, exactly. There are a lot of things that as an adult and as a child I see require training and practice to do well. Drawing takes a lot of practice. Anatomy takes practice. The difference in control and ability between one year of piano and four are staggering. I'm definitely not suggesting that practice isn't needed to make some great things. It's worth putting in the effort to get good at things because it opens up so much more scope.
But oddly as a child I really thought that I could do a poor best, that I had to try super, super, super hard but even when I did, only the genius best luckiest would ever truly succeed. There are a lot of talented people out there. I never was a big fish in a small pond for long - I knew quite early how big that pond was, it's global. It's very, very, very big. My graduating high school class alone was over 600 people. Try to stand out in that... I think that view was kind of right, but only because in so many of the arts it's so hard to make a living that the visible people who are doing that art, for a living, are both lucky and talented and super hardworking. There is absolutely no room for most. Only the thinnest, tiniest slice.
It took me so many years to not-quite unlearn it, but maybe think past it. For example, my mom sings beautifully. She hasn't had much formal teaching, she can't read music, but functionally speaking there is absolutely nothing wrong with her ability to create art through her voice whatsoever. If the world was different, she has enough skill to have been a musician. It's not talent or skill that excludes her. It was really hard for me to separate the idea - I didn't even know I should, created by this scarcity mindset - that extreme achievement was not the only achievement, that virtuosity did not mean perfection, that perhaps even virtuosity was not the only goal! That even perfection in a single line excluded other goals and might not be everyone's goal. That excellence could be enough, rather than the top #1 forever and ever. That such a thing was impossible and not even a real thing. My parents still kind of do this, with distance I can see it more clearly: they'll send me videos of three pianists playing the same Mozart piece and then ask me who is best. And I can't really get them to understand that I don't really enjoy music that way, that I don't really want to engage in art/'perform fandom' by ranking things. Plus by the time you are a professional concert pianist it's not about best anymore. (Was it ever, except in the weird twisted competition ways we all played into?) They are all extraordinary. Best is meaningless. I think a lot of humans probably have enough artistic talent to create great things. We just don't, because we're not interested, we don't have time, there isn't the same motivation when it's your living, we don't see the point, etc. This fundamental idea that while not everyone can be an exceptional sculptor, so many of us probably could get very good at it if we wanted. "Who is better, Picasso or Caravaggio?" is just not a question I ever think about because it's a question operating on a completely different plane of existence.
I've finally reached a stage of life where I am on the other side of the table, too. It started years ago, when I became a supervisor, I interviewed people, I gave directions, I made decisions. But I went up again, and now there is a lot more decision making at my disposal. Not all my decisions, but a lot more. And it forces an interesting perspective, because every person in power is a human being. Every person I ever looked up to is/was also a human being, like me, who could make mistakes. That's scary, but levelling. The hands I have are not any worse, really, than the average anyone else's; my decision making brainpower is not unequal to theirs. I've always thought, "if one person can discover it, then I can learn it - if I want". I never quite thought of it artistically, that if someone can learn to paint or draw it, then I can too - with sufficient effort and time and practice of course, plus a little luck if it's very difficult. For various reasons I never thought about it that way. I thought I could not draw and I could not paint and the stuff I did with crafts was just lesser. I don't know!
I think it's the realization that success is not always conferred externally from someone(s) deciding you're up to scratch. It's the knowledge internally that you created something good and real. The gatekeeping is very fierce and feedback can be so severe it kind of damages your - my - ability to be confident in my own stuff.
At the same time, there's been a shift culturally around me, saying that the joy of making something is intrinsically a good thing. (I agree!) There's also a parallel drift of thought that if everything is mass manufactured - which also tends to bring the price down - then the not mass manufactured thing has even more value. Both from an artisan-being-paid-for-their-time perspective - which kind of has its own problems in re: what about the human hands in mass manufacture but I digress - but also in a status symbol way. Look at me: I'm rich enough that I can wear this one of a kind unique thing which another human being created for me with their hands. It can't be bought from the shelf because it wasn't made in the millions. It was made for me.
All this to say that I've decided that finally, maybe this belief, that my art isn't good enough, is stupid. Also, who cares if someone can tell I made it. I make damn good stuff, actually. I really do. It was the fear of looking poor and being odd, to customize clothing, but I don't really care if people think that, because it's not relevant. I don't wear it in contexts where it'd be important, either. I don't think I'm going to modify every single thing I own because good grief the effort and I don't feel the urge to, but also if I want to paint a thing I own, I am just gonna go do that. My hands are pretty good, actually.
no subject
Date: May. 28th, 2026 01:09 pm (UTC)I knew early on that to make my living as a flutist -- a performer, in particular -- would be unlikely. Only the cream of the crop make it, and how those who become the "cream" become that is sometimes hard to fathom. From the outside looking in, it appears to be based on "legitimate competitions" (try-outs), but also networking and knowing the "right people." It's not completely blind.
You're also right that when you get to THAT level, everyone is good. How do you know who is "best?" Sometimes musical groups are looking for a certain style of musician, so it's not about talent per se, but the type of music the musician plays best.
I realized very early I didn't want that stress in my life. If I'd gone into it, I was never sure I could genuinely become good enough. But I also didn't know if I had the networking skills. I was afraid that the process of finding my place in the musical world would ultimately taint my love of music and of playing the flute. It would become more of a grind and less about loving it.
It also might have been a handy excuse -- an excuse not to do the intense practicing and hard work required to make it. And it might also have been my chronic low self-confidence and lack of self-esteem. You have to go into it with a sense of your own talent, not just for yourself, but in comparison to others with whom you're competing.
So, this mentality has left me stalled at playing at an intermediate level. I get to play in church occasionally, and I've played a wedding or two in my past, but that's the extent of it. I play for myself, but sometimes that's not enough. I yearn to share it and to be heard. But, in the end, others who are genuinely better flutest get the shot - as they probably should.