The Question Of Talent & Cultural Disposition (Part 1)
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
“Talent
is a slippery concept.” So says Gollwitzer in The Joy Of Drawing.
She raises the question, “Perhaps artistic talent is considered rare
because we expect it to be rare…” Rather, we should claim it
as an inherent part of our being and train ourselves in a way that allows
us to manifest creativity naturally. We all exhibit a talent of some sort,
talent for compassion, talent for organization, talent for making people
laugh, and so forth. We must recognize that “talent” and learn
the skills of what we ascribe as “natural talent.”
It is a fallacy that “learning” a skill such as drawing will
inhibit or stifle natural creativity. Picasso was trained classically and
was said to “draw like an angel,” and yet this did not prohibit
him from manifesting distinctly original creative expression. It can be
argued that every great artist of their age was unorthodox for the accepted
standards of their time. However, in applying the philosophy earlier espoused
by Bill Russell, that there is nothing inherently advantageous in doing
something a certain way just because it was always done that way, these
leaders moved beyond current convention, despite accepting and acknowledging
the knowledge and ability that had come before.
Talent plays a part in creativity, but it must be exercised. “Creativity,
and the joy of it, usually arises out of mastery of talent,” Creators
On Creating, edited by Frank Barron et al. (1989). Mastering talent in order
to be creative requires discipline and routine, but this need not be boring,
mundane or numbing to the imagination. Even discipline and routine can be
creative. If one thinks of a sports team, or a dancer or photographer, one
can see that there might be infinite variety and imagination in the practice
of basic skills. In the discipline of going to the barre, to the playing
field or to the garden or studio, joy can be present, discovery can be made.
Several years ago, W. Duncan Ross, former head of the Bristol Old Vic Theater
School in Britain, told the story of a young actress who was rather awkward,
even clumsy in her physical movement and so had been enrolled in several
dance classes…where she failed miserably. One day the dance teacher
was many minutes late in arriving and was surprised to find the girl dancing
gracefully across the stage in an impromptu fantasy. The girl was questioned
about the sudden change, and remarked, “But you see, I wasn’t
trying to do what you wanted me to do. I was just playing at being myself.”
The unfortunate aspect of our current cultural disposition is that we usually
select and praise talent, especially in children, by certain predefined
criteria that have more to do with the political correctness of the day,
or to an educational structure that cannot accommodate original thinking.
What may be merely a skill or an undeveloped ability such as an “ability
to draw realistically” earns one a “gifted in art” label.
This inevitably leads to a true talent being undeveloped and unexplored
(as “drawing realistically” is accepted as the accepted goal
of creativity) or is falsely labeled (as when “drawing realistically”
is actually an outgrowth of a different skill such as organization of spatial
relationships, or fine hand-eye coordination which might be better applied
in developing microbiological protein models.)
When we observe talent to be a skill, albeit a finely defined skill for
which one has a natural aptitude, it demystifies the experience. As with
religious mysticism or spiritualism, we have developed a cultural comfort
for dismissing such things, as we don’t care to explore as “mysteries”
and natural order. The historical consequences of such actions are seen
in the ultimate dissolution of the great cultures of Rome, Tuscany and others
that are similar.
On the other hand, as a culture and society, we tend to idolize and idealize
those attributes we consider talent (mostly in the arenas of arts) but lend
our material respect and reward to those things that we accept as natural
skills, like organization, mathematical computations and such, even though
such things might easily be categorized as talents. This tendency creates
a certain antipathy towards the pursuit and development of creativity, in
that we continually see the so-called left-brain activities rewarded at
the very time we are expected to “think for ourselves,” “problem
solve,” and “think outside the box.” Again we find a certain
irony in the fact that studies consistently point to the fact that infants
and children (and by extrapolation, adults) are healthier and happier and
better able to accomplish creative reasoning when they are in and around
a creative atmosphere, i.e. a nurturing, natural setting. There is also
a distinct and marked reduction in overall abilities, not just creativity,
when we are deprived of the “intangible” qualities of environmental
structure assurance. Despite this we insist on lining up the rows in schools
with cold metal desks, and putting office workers into maze like cubicles.
Truly, culture provides few opportunities for training alternative perceptional
skills. But that is not to say that we are not or cannot become creative.
Television personality, singer, composer and author Steve Allen said in
The Right Brain Experience, “No one is entitled to say, ‘I’m
not creative,’ because the proof to the contrary is dreaming. Everybody
dreams, so everybody is not only creative but astoundingly creative. A dream
is like 827 moments of creativity all scotch taped together.” (The
Right Brain Experience, 1983).
Continued in part 2. Click here.
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