Yesterday my youngest daughter and I spent some time running errands. She is home for the holidays and in the middle of her sophomore year at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She is studying painting and fine arts and she told me with clear disdain about the Industrial Design and Illustration students and how they seem so sullen and hyper-focused on their studies. “I’m not here to have fun,” they’ve told her. They claim that they are working at a trade, that they are focused on business and careers. And, more to the point, that they aren’t concerned with art.
“Don’t you aspire to anything?” she asks them. “Doesn’t anyone’s work in your area inspire you to greatness?”
“No,” they tell her. “I’m just concerned with being good enough.”
I told her what a shame that was to be in the country’s finest art and design school and to let the incredible experience just be about getting a job. It misses the primary and central role that craftsmanship has and how it can elevate any effort into the realm of art.
She also told me about a junior who had switched majors and, if judged ready by a single painting, could move into advanced placement and not be forced to add a year to his studies. He tossed off a painting and she asked him, “Do you think that this painting worth fifty thousand dollars?” That’s what a year of tuition costs at RISD. He was shocked and told her he’d not thought of it that way.
How about you? Do you think about your work this way. Are you tossing it off? Are you blind to the value of what you do?
Let us, for a moment, consider the master carpenter and furniture maker.
A finely made piece of wooden furniture is a thing of true beauty. The smoothness of the joined wood, the elegance of the construction, and the beauty of the precise use of ornamentation all make something that is functional and beautiful. The untrained hand might be able to pound together some pieces of wood to make a functional piece, but it is clear and recognizable that a great gulf exists between the skills of the beginner and those of the master craftsman. What is equally apparent is the importance of study, practice, and work with other master craftsmen all before one can attain that status for ones self.
Are there any natural, brilliant, but untrained furniture makers? I doubt it. Yes, there are those that are considered to be “primitive” or “outsider” artists, and they may be given that title for the rough furniture that they produce, but it’s also clear that they lack the craft of wood working and joinery. One may be self taught or spend a long period of study with others, but there’s work required to learn the basics of a craft before one can move on to the secrets and beyond into artistic expression.
The point isn’t just to make good enough furniture. For that you can work in a factory and make the same thing over and over agin. The craftsman creates something new, explores new territory, even if it’s in the refinement of the smallest details.
One can mass produce virtually anything. To create something new one must venture into the realm of art.
It’s a shame when art students’ don’t see this. Do you see it in your own ventures?
And when, may I ask, did so many people get to the point of ignoring the craft of writing?
It irks me to no end to read something that someone has published online, something broken and incoherent, but to also see their claim that they do not need to develop their skills in the craft of writing. “I don’t need to edit or rewrite. This is more authentic and raw. I am a naturally talented writer.”
Indeed. Many in the Punk Rock movement claimed the same things. They stated that not knowing how to play their instruments made them better, more visceral. Any yet Joe Strummer has had more impact and he was a real, working, exploring craftsman. I care little for the noise and screaming of most of this forgotten music, but Joe Strummer reaches me.
I have had a long journey, developing my craft as a writer. I have reached the point where I know my weaknesses, I know where I must practice, and I know that this road stretches a lifetime ahead of me. My daughters, one a musician and the other a painter, already surpass me in their mastery of their arts. I am at once immensely proud of them as a parent and more than a little intimidated by them. I struggle to find a way just to be able to understand what they’re doing, to be able to discuss their work with them as they shift and change and explore new ground. Both understand far more than I ever did about what the work requires. To tell the truth, they frighten me a bit.
There’s a point that every parent comes to when they look at what their children do when we must ask, “Is this any good? Is my child really accomplished or does my love for them blind me?” I no longer doubt my daughters’ abilities and accomplishments. They are both skilled craftsmen and artists. And I see them continue to work and struggle. They’ll go far beyond the work that they do now.
Do you still struggle? Do you grapple with your craft?
I do.
In school, from the very first days when we are taught to write, we are presented with the rules and complexities of writing. “I can speak. Why can’t I write that way?” You can write that way, but will it convey what you mean to say? Do you have the ability to transcend your limited vocabulary and reach a broader audience? And if you want to really communicate and create emotions and thoughts in others, how, exactly, will you do that?
The answer, of course, is the same as the advice that you’d give an aspiring woodworker: apprentice yourself to a craftsman and work at the craft. Practice, try again, then explore new territory.
This became even clearer to me as I studied theater. I am a natural actor, but as I discovered, not a particularly good one. Or, perhaps, just not good enough. Theater is one of the places in the arts that is both collaborative and filled with people who deeply understand their craft. The word “craft” is used everywhere, including “stagecraft.” Early on I easily won parts and enjoyed acting and singing. But as I moved up, especially when I made the leap from undergrad to graduate theater studies, everyone around me was pretty good at acting. Some of them were very good. And I began to understand what I would have to do to become better. I couldn’t get by just on talent. I would have to work at the craft of acting.
This point was further hammered home to me when I found that I had a talent suited to writing plays. A “playwright” is not so much a writer, as he or she is craftsman, a builder of plays. That’s why the word includes “wright,” as in someone who builds, not someone who writes. Yes, anyone can write down a play script, but it takes a high degree of understanding and skill to build a play that will work. You have to know where the seams and joints are and how to make them both strong and invisible (unless one wants to make them visible).
I consider myself an artist, but I also make a living through the work of writing. I do not separate those two things in my mind. I believe that in the past year I’ve done some of my best and most artistically satisfying work. Most of that was work for clients. In fact, I believe that I am a better business writer because I hold the art of writing as sacred and I continually work at the craft of it.
Art is not lessened by working at the craft. Your authenticity isn’t destroyed by rewriting, editing, and testing your ideas and execution. Craft of any type gives the artist a bigger range of vocabulary. You can say more because you can do more.
And the flip side: craft can become sterile and uninteresting without the aspiration to the artistic. If I could speak to those Industrial Design students I’d tell them that every non-natural object we touch has been designed, but some, most, are badly designed. Those objects that capture our imagination and attention are made by craftsmen and artist who bring their craft to the point where these objects become works of art.
Who wouldn’t want that? It’s hard, of course, but it’s also completely worth the effort, even when you fail.
As I was finishing the first draft of this piece I saw a comment from my friend Aaron Mahnke, Read & Trust’s founder and publisher. He said, “If people got as fired up about doing great work as they did about a free photo-sharing app’s terms of service, we’d have a better world.”
This I know to be true. A focus on doing great work, of making good art can make almost anything better. But only if you focus on the craft and aspire to making whatever you do good art.
Originally published in the Read & Trust Newsletter.