My artist and poet friend Sue keeps learning. She has studied art with teachers and has produced art in several mediums for years. She has managed co-op art galleries, displayed her works in solo and group shows, and taught art to youngsters. But now Sue has extremely limited money resources. For awhile she kept up her learning about art processes by watching arts and crafts shows on TV. When she got a PC, she switched to following art blogs and watching tutorials. Still she is learning. Still she keeps experimenting. Still.
I likewise keep learning bolstered in my resolve to do so by watching Sue’s creative efforts and by recalling the concept of lifelong learning I promoted during my long career as a minister. I try to practice what I preached. For instance, I have long participated in a writers group that, although it does not critique pieces, affords me a constant source of response and learning. When I read something to that group of writers, I hear my words differently and pick up problems I’ve missed in my own reading and editing. I also get positive feedback.
When possible I have attended art workshops. One of the most helpful processes I learned in a week-long event with Houston artist Polly Hammett in 1998 was a process of self-criticism. She recommended the process that continues to teach me about my work and its direction. Her SELF-CRITIQUE is this:
Select from your current work several of the pieces. Set them up as a gallery. Decide three things you like about each piece.
1. See them. As you look at each piece see what you like.
2. Say them. Aloud say what it is that you like. Say aloud all three things.
3. Write them. Write down those things you have decided. If you are working on paper, write them on the back of the piece itself. If not, write them in a notebook. Write them.
Then choose your favorite piece. Decide, say, and write why it is your favorite, how it is related to the other pieces, and how it is different. “Do this,” she said, “so you keep affirming what you like. You will do again such things if you repeat them verbally.” She also stressed not to spend any time on the things you don’t like or you’ll end up doing them again and again! I have applied her advice to my work over the past fifteen years.
When I worked at a spa clients would sometimes ask, “How long have you been doing massage?”
I told them, “I’ve given massages professionally for eight years.”
“What did you do before that?” they almost always responded.
“I was a minister,” I said. That stopped the conversation almost as effectively as being introduced as a minister to a group of people drinking heavily in a bar.
“That’s really different,” many of them would eventually respond.
“No,” I answered with a chuckle. “My clients still tell me their problems.”
We’d laugh together. Then I’d clarify. “Actually it is different. In the massage context they edit their stories much less.”
Even in this last year of massage I have been learning new processes, new applications of things I learned in school, and sometimes a realization of what my teachers were trying to communicate about the work all those years ago.
In 2013 I am still learning not only about my art and massage, but also about personal relationships, things I never before could have imagined. The things people have told me about their lives probably were just details I couldn’t imagine about folk in churches when they told me their troubles. I have learned about life and about people, including many things about the varieties of GLBT folk!
Enough of these stories. Here’s my elder advice:
* In learning and work, both go it alone and collaborate with others.
* Adopt a rookie attitude about your life, skills, and learning even if you are ancient.
* Like Sue, find novel ways to learn.
* Keep your eyes open, your ideas transportable, and your attitudes creatively engaged.
And let me tell you; I hope to keep learning right up to my last breath.
Denver, © 2013
About the Author
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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