Soapbox: Give the Artist His due

A lot of non-artist types like to talk about God-given artistic talent. Like it is a Cracker Jaks prize that they missed out on. It is a major cop out that turns all the pains taking years of hard work the artist spends learning the craft into some kind of divine lottery.

Artist spend more time then doctors learning the craft. Or the great ones do. We start at an earlier age and keep working years longer. But still all our work is blown off as the luck of the cosmic draw.

Here is a case in point. Up front I will admit that I was madly jealous of the work of John Totleben when I first met him age 19 going on renaissance master. Here is a sketch of John`s that I found in my resent journeys though my archives.


Click for enlarged view:

John would come over to my studio in Dover and hang out. I had lots of these end paper drawing pads laying around that were given to me by another K.B. student who worked for a printer. John was always drawing, always, always drawing. I must have 40 or 50 of these sketches that he left behind. I remember driving down highway 41 with John riding shotgun and he was inking a drawing in his sketchbook using a Shaffer pen filled with India ink.

God given talent my ass. This is hundreds and hundreds of thousands of hours of hard work on top of an aptitude that I am, yes, willing to give some heavenly credit. But without all the work, nothing. Oh you`re so lucky to have that God-given talent.