Two Counter-intuitive places to deepen your art
Can you step outside your craft, in order to dive back in?
So, you want to improve your craft. You’re learning, taking courses, working at it day in and day out, week by week, month on month. You’re taking care of your craft diligently, sincerely, reaching closer to mastery inch by inch.
Craft is the king, generally, and there’s little evidence to deny that.
But today, strangely, this article will go against evidence. I am instead going to play the devil towards you, placing a counter-proposal, an antithesis to craft specialty here, which is:
To grow your craft, your craft is not the only king. Step away from him and look around the court.
What? To grow as artists, isn’t craft the way forward? It’s only logical, right?
To become a better painter, we need to paint more.
To become a better guitar player, we need to work on our instrument.
Yes, it is logical of course. Which is why it can end up shallow in the arts. Shallow and weak. Whereas art needs depth. Because in the realm of art and mysteries — some depths are to be found in the seemingly illogical, non-linear, and counter-intuitive.
What if I tell you (and what if you already know) that there are places to work on and invest, which lie nowhere near your craft, but would nonetheless have a powerful impact on your art, albeit indirectly.
Indirect, since their threads don’t readily mingle into our arts in that familiar, linear fashion. They are cunning and invisible for the most part.
Let’s talk about these threads, what are they and how do they affect our art-works. This has been pulled from my yarn of experience, of diving into multiple art-forms: from my time as a drummer for bands and ensembles to my time spent composing music for commercials and independent projects.
Thread 1: Strength of personality: Your art-work will reflect this
During my drumming days some years ago, I faced a roadblock in my craft that at first seemed mysterious. Why?
I had a major drawback in my playing that was being pointed out by almost everyone around me, everyone. But I couldn’t see it, nor understand it nor overcome it for a while. It was a block that was glaringly visible from the outside but seemed inaccessible on the inside.
What was this block? Well, my playing was judged as too soft and possessing a low upper threshold. This annoyed some of the funk and rock bands I played with, who needed a sharp, tight drummer, where rhythm is the backbone.
Even after conscious efforts to up my playing in response to the feedback, I kept returning to my earlier nature — soft, loose, and hesitant. It was a tendency my craft reposed on and I couldn’t figure out what to do initially.
When finally I learned to tackle this, after tons of sweat, I understood a law that ran deeper than any craft, be it drumming or writing.
Problems can be overcome, it’s not hard — But root causes are the gold. I found something intriguing and shocking about the root cause behind my drumming block, and I still remember the day it struck me:
I realized, my drumming was soft and unsure, because I was soft and unsure everywhere else.
Simple. The shocker was a simple thing. The nature of my being determined the nature of my drumming, my craft.
I played softer than was mandated by the song because I had a low opinion of myself, a lack of self-assurance. I expanded my horizon to other aspects of my life and noticed close parallels: My hesitancy to speak, my resistance to voice an opinion in public, my fear of retaliation, a lack of confidence in my tastes and beliefs — all of them joined and merged into my drumming. Which led to this gemstone:
“It is not merely craft practice which influences the craft, but a hundred threads more.”
Because how I played anywhere, is how I played everywhere. I played safe and shy, in living and being, and so my drumming reflected that.
It led me to an important hypothesis I invite you to test out: That the way we are constituted internally, privately is the way our artworks are constituted. They are not different. Who you are and what your artwork speaks of don’t reside on two disconnected islands, where you sleep on one during the night and visit the other by day. You are the only island, and your artwork resides in it.
If we can shatter one idea my friend, it is this separation between us and our work, as two unrelated phenomena.
The implication:
The more bolder and mightier you become, the more mightier your art gets — so why not work on refining and sculpting yourself, along with your craft.
“With them (artists) their subtle powers usually come to an end where art ends and life begins; but we want to be the poets of our life — first of all in the smallest, most everyday matters.” — Nietzsche
Thread 2: Your attitude towards the “technical”
Have you noticed: Creative folks, in general, tend to avoid certain dimensions altogether — anything to do with excessive technicalities, finance, repairing an electric heater, fixing a broken tap, dealing with people(oh-so-complicated), or planning a long vacation. The grim and square technical work that haunts the sentimentally inclined artist. It’s a zone we creatives are averse to, we wish someone takes care of all that for us, while we restrict ourselves to our craft and groove, and relieve ourselves in artistic continuity.
“I just want to make art. Screw the rest.” is the motto of today’s exhausted artist overwhelmed with increasing technical bombardments. Let’s call this zone the technical, the forest we’d do anything to escape from.
Robert Pirsig in his seminal work: Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, called it the Classical realm, in contrast to the romantic realm artists find their solace in.
As a drummer for bands, some years back, I hated the technical realm. But, I loved the craft and practiced it. A drummer’s technical realm is understanding sound, drumming inventories and materials, different products in the market — I hated all of that, I just wanted to play. The technical bits were confusing and frustrating, and I relied on blindly followed suggestions from peers went it came to this realm.
Pretty soon I hit a wall. I played well and commanded the craft, but my output, my drum sound was still sagging. My lack of knowledge of the technical played against me, and my result as a whole stagnated, putting me in a weaker position. I couldn’t afford that disadvantage. To my surprise, I found that my approach to the technical does define me as an artist, and determines its quality.
Craft needs another pillar to support art on: The craft and the technical. The whole cannot depend on any one alone. A quality artist needs to be holistic if he seeks progress. He needs to be able to work with the materials, money, people, and grim-looking problems if he has to produce well and execute.
It is not enough to be a good drummer. Rather I need to be a holistic drummer.
There’s the division: The craftsman vs the holistic craftsman. It is an evolution and maturation of the artist, who stops hiding from the grim and the unwanted, and reduces her dependency on “what she likes”.
It is a call to dive into the technical forest and stretch your cognitive muscles; something needed, especially for our arts.
We artists have a tendency to lean on our craft. We’ve found a spot suitable for us, that grants us a sense of uniqueness and worth, and we don’t like giving it up. It’s our territory. We put our flag on it as creatives and huddle over it to dig out our gold. But here I advocate the opposite:
What if you reduce leaning on your craft and rather step-play-dance in the world?
What if you grow into a three (or four) dimensional holistic artist, rather than single dimensional craftsman.
What if you embrace the technical aspects of work you detest — dealing with people, finances, etc?
Will it immediately impact your craft — Maybe not.
Will it develop you? Aye, how could it not? Your art will always reflect who you are. If you’ve developed, wouldn't your art reflect that too? How could it not?
Follow the threads, because most aren’t touching them in a world that promotes only the visible, linear threads.
Which thread you invest in would make all the difference, in the end.
