In one of Robert Genn’s recent newsletters he talks about a study of creative children that grow into creative adults. The psychologist Ellen Winner found that creative people choose their path very early in life and they often have similarities like; scholastic boredom, difficulty making friends, and social problems.
Here’s some more characteristics of creative people from Robert’s article..
- Visual perceptions that transcend everyday life
- Heightened responses to natural surroundings
- Sustained high standards of work ethic
- Early presence of mentor(s)
- Early formation of personal identity
- Tendency to do things in unique ways
- Preference to work autonomously
- Defiance or suspicion of conventional thinking
I think I suffer from (or am blessed with?) all of the characteristics above. Another funny observation that I have made over the years is that artists generally like other artists. It’s almost like we have joined some special club where the members are connected on a lot of different levels.
Perhaps it is the same connection that firemen, plumbers, or accountants feel when they get together, but I think it’s something more.
I noticed that Genn’s piece is about creative people, but he never uses the word “artist.” I think there are just as many creative people in other fields. It’s quite possible many are “artistic” as well — though I’m quite sure some are not. For whatever reason they just don’t end up going into art. Dion, did you always think you would be an artist? I myself was and probably remain more of a scientist, though I’m trying to develop artistically also. I never took an art course in college, though I think I looked through more art history books than anyone else there.
I tend to take studies like this with a good bit of scepticism. Maybe that’s because I share the last characteristic! But I recently ran across a study — get that grain of salt ready — that examined eye movements of subjects looking at a picture. The gist is that artists spent more time than non-artists looking at parts of the picture other than the main center of attention. Perhaps this supports the first characteristic listed.
I like reading Genn’s little essays, but this one I couldn’t see myself in.
I unfortunately seemed to have had a pretty normal childhood, wasn’t any more of a loner than circumstances ascribed, and I was so conventional that I’ve always been grateful I married my unconventional husband. I could have ended up in Scarsdale, wearing little black dresses instead of Portland in blue jeans. I’m even pretty outgoing and seem to have lots of friends in various walks of life.
I did think of myself as creative, I suppose, although not visually talented. I wrote the usual bad poems and worse prose as a kid and exceptionally bad poems but better prose as an adult. But really, am I the only creative person who got along just fine with her family and never fled to NYC (or San Francisco) to escape the philistines?
Perhaps this makes me an artist-hanger-on rather than the real thing. Well, I certainly have fun hanging on to this discussion group, so there are compensations.
I did always think I would be an artist Steve. I remember pretending to be a famous artist when I was about 4 or 5, drawing madly all over our new fence, which probably didnt please the parents much at the time.
And artists probably look at paintings more than non-artists because they are working out how it was made.. I know that’s what I do anyway. I either run past a painting, or observe it for ages, depending on whether I like it or not.
June,
you are too modest. Your textiles are powerful images.
“Draw Some Shoes as Representations of Your Family”: I took one art class as an undergraduate and hated it.
“Watercolors from Our Sabbatical Year in Rome”: I visited local galleries and considered the work, Arrogant and Boring.
And then, I saw Nauman’s spirling neon sign “The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.” It was both: simple and complicated, empty and full, serious and funny, etc. It was not the artist (and the community) but the Work.
How is it that a young person will practice the piano 20-30 minutes, nearly everyday and for many years or attend basketball camp and shoot in the backyard for hours, but when you ask them to draw they will shake their heads, discouraged, “I can’t.”
I 100% believe that one of the central reasons for this disinterest is our willingness to perpetuate the myth of This Post. Art should be more ambitious, well beyond Birth, the Club, or Beret and be inclusive. Why?
We can.
It’s not only drawing most people will say they can’t do, it’s also math or writing or spending a day in the wilderness or making a political statement. As a gross generalization, I have the sad impression that “people” are intimidated by anything different from what they usually do, and sometimes even by that. Learned helplessness. On better days, I find plenty of exceptions.
What gives rise to ‘learned helplessness’?
Socialized fear of failure, constant studies and warnings about what you’re doing wrong, media focus on dangers and problems?
Yes: Fear, Fear, Fear.
I was recently in an airport, stranded, and on the TV was CNN, at the bottom of the screen was a flashing red ALERT. I moved closer to read that… I don’t even remember but it was remarkably Unimportant.
I am also finding that a lot of Parenting wavers dramatically between the Disengaged and Overly-Ambitious. For example, I coach a middle-school Girls Soccer Team and many of the conversations with parents overlook their Play and move on to College Scholarships.
Robert Genn’s list, and Ellen Winner’s findings, are pretty good descriptions of my experience growing up. Actually, Genn’s list is a pretty good description of me as an adult! But I seem to have outgrown the boredom and social problems Winner cites.
I think our expectations often formulate where we will go, but those expectations are seriously warped by “temperament” (for lack of a better word). If we are defiant loners, there’s a lot of expectation that we will be artistic or at least creative. But we might just grow up to be grumpy postal clerks.
This is different from the expectation (in my distant past) that a reasonably cheerful outgoing female could never be a serious artist. One of the most exciting things I learned, after embarking on my present life, was that Van Gogh decided to learn to draw after he was well grown and not good at it, and he (or someone) said it took him about five years.
Well, I have five years! If 5 years and overachieving might get me there, then my temperament could be warped enough to try it. Couldn’t do anything about the gender, but the times required, to be taken seriously, cynicism and sarcasm, both of which can be easily imitated. A good mask underneath which I can do what I will do….
And thanks, Birgit, for the lovely words about the art. I’m not really as modest as I sometimes pretend — but sometimes I am indeed that diffident. Just depends on the time of day and the state of my digestion.
I do understand and appreciate the objections raised by June and D. But I do have to say that I recognize myself in most of the above descriptors, along with other artsy people that I know. And although this may be mere superstition, there are people that I could point to and say that they’ll probably never become an artist. But of course people are complicated, and who knows for sure what they’ll do.
We don’t always want to be the ones to perpetuate any stereotype. Some are good, some are bad, some are just plain silly….but in many cases they exist because there are certain truths to be found in them (whether we like it or not).
The stereotype of the loner, temperamental, rebellious, nerdy, artsy type describes me perfectly as a child and teenager. And I was about 11 when I first said I wanted to be an artist. A sketch pad was always within arms reach from that point on.
Even now, the description isn’t far off.
i really want to echo what chantal says.
personally, i fit into those bullets and i remember agreeing with them when i first read genn’s newsletter.
though i’ve never had problems making friends, i think it’s more of a “preference to work autonomously” than being defiant loner, myself. i love community, especially among other artistic souls.
D said –
i can tell you that from my experience, it’s because public school systems condition youth how to stop thinking for themselves. i think artistic minds see through this, and why many of them run against the grain growing up. your teacher tells you to answer “xyz” and you quickly “learn” that you better answer that way to get the grade. but when it comes time to draw a picture? anything you want? the student isn’t used to thinking for themselves and wait instruction. thus the, “i can’t.”
Can I blame my art teacher at high school for not having become an artist sooner?
In my hometown, I won a first prize for a print of an industrial landscape made from carved linoleum. After my teacher told me about my success, she turned to her colleague and loudly said: a blind hen finds a piece of corn.
One of my obsession was to make sure that my children were always in schools with supportive teachers.
I was about 18 months when I started scribbling and by 2 and a half I was drawing an image of a fish and snail quite clear.
I grew up with my paintings and drawings always stand out from the rest of the class and being often shown on the walls as classroom decorations.
At 16 I won a Student Art award and when I grew up into an adult I became what I am between so many others…
I always knew what I wanted to do; it was never a choice for me…
I did always have a transcendent imagination for my age, my mum used to ask me what I had to eat in school for lunch when I was 5 and I would simply say: “Soup with Flowers!”
Birgit,
It is one of my obsessions to never become that art teacher who stomps on the art student’s soul. The climate of constant critique and how could this be better? What’s wrong with it? Excel excel excel can be a real killer on creativity. I am acutely aware of this in the college setting where I am holding students to high standards that may feel arbitrary and foreign to them. I am careful to explain my own biases when evaluating them but i know those formative experiences can be so damaging (even by the time they reach colege). No wonder students get afraid to think for themsleves. Often when they do they are told they didn’t do it “right.” Akin to staying within the lines in the coloring book…
AS a very late art student, what I’ve found is that I can absorb only a few things, maybe only one, at a time. I need input and strong input, not coddling — I’m too old for false praise — but only on one aspect — “glaze with ultramarine” or “lay down the black shadows behind the grass first.”
What some art teachers want is for students to absorb everything that they, the teachers, know — it’s a natural impulse and one that feels generous. But the best teachers are very stingy with their information, feeding it slowly to the fingers and minds of the students. I like to think of my art teachers as making me a roux, in which a few bits of flour have to be thoroughly mixed before I can digest any more.
This is radically different from teaching, say, the British novel, where history can get swooped through in great gobs and the students can memorize somethings and get the “feel” for others and do just fine. Teaching art is training the fingers and eye and that takes patience that neither students nor teachers sometimes recognize.
This is not to say I didn’t have the usual off-putting experiences in my youth. I vowed never to take another art class — or do any more sewing for that matter — in 8th grade when my art teacher sneered at my carefully delineated face-on drawing of a Philadelphia historica monument (it was dreadful, but I was trying very hard) and my mother had to finish my apron for home ec because I whined so much. So much for vows.
Going by the above standards, I am not that creative…
I used to love doing chemistry experiments when my parents were not looking using chemicals stolen from a friends garage. After I burned myself badly I stopped that creative urge.
No matter how good is your teacher, the best school you go to, if ther crits are doing you good or not… art is something that no matter how much you learn and study, if it is not on you… you will never reach it!
Art is something that is gracefull and elgant. It is not to be destroyed. Art alows you to be free.
well.
I ve been an artist since i was a kid.and i m getting tiered.
its like being stuck in yourself.and the rest of the world is just not available.
i have never been able to stop.yet i have never beenthe best . everything else is easy for me to do well in, but painting just i never get to the top of my capabilitites…once u get at a point, you come to realise you have got to nowere.i ve made mistakes of trying to please the viewer, but at this point i cannot be bothered anymore. i just do not like or need anyone to like my work anymore.
i m not sure,,wether it s a sickness i got, that is eating me….or a blessing.
i m now looking at 2 artworks i m working on..and i just cannot figure out wether they r beautiful or attrocious…wether they r finished or not.
Selina,
I have made mistakes of trying to please the viewer,…
I started painting a picture with the intent of giving it to my daughter as a present. But after a while, I felt inhibited by thinking whether my daughter would like the picture. I realized that I could only enjoy the process of painting the picture if I fully owned it, made it mine.
I’ve always been an artist- I’ve always been ‘different’- too sensitive maybe- As I’ve gotten older the distance has increased between me and the world- Among artists and writers- sometimes actors- musicians- educated free thinking people- I feel at home- Among regular people especially in small towns- I scare them- What’s ordinary for me- is odd or scary for a lot of people- I moved back from big cities to the small town- I live in constant siege mentality- This defensiveness and feeling of being an outcast has led to misanthropic feelings- which just further alienate-
Unless i’m around other creatives, rebels artists- It’s me against the world- Hard thing to get out of- but much of my life is spent trying to resolve everything- However- I’ve got to work work work to reach ever increasing standards – the more you learn, the harder it gets