Don’t Mistake this Moment for Mastery
I made a student cry the other day and I thought of my Father. His voice echoing in my head, “Are you going to keep playing wrong notes all night? …or, “Maybe you find the grass to be more interesting in this photograph than the flowers?” A small observation that cut to the core of my student this week, said directly without frill or malice like my mentors before me, was challenged by this new photography prodigy of 3 weeks. The Zoom lesson ended shortly thereafter.
With Covid dragging on in our fortresses of solitude, suddenly we’re masters of our domain. I learned how to “cook”, you learned how to play ukulele, Aunt Ruby finally started to learn needlepoint, and Uncle Ernie is now an ornithologist. Check, check, check… What’s next on our list?
AH! Get me the Internet.
Must sell the new thing that I’ve been doing for the last 3-6 months. New website, check. Instagram account with followers galore, check. It’s a new product that has potential, but ultimately lacking. You know it’s not where you want it to be, but you can’t put your finger on it. Maybe you don’t have the verbiage/vocabulary or skill set yet to express via your desired medium, and that’s OK; you’re new at this! So naturally you seek out someone who knows better. A Master, but deep down you question if you’re ready for the raw observation that comes next.
Art is it’s own form of slavery. 4 to 12+ years of study, or apprenticeship. Essentially locked up in a constrained environment, absorbing, living, breathing that craft. And I’m not just talking Art with a capital A. Any craft, finance, plumbing, cement laying, whatever. Years of training and development, obsession, poison & passion.
You’re on a four lane highway. Suddenly there’s a merge up head down to 1 lane. Uh oh, it’s a bottle neck. Cars anxiously playing bumper tag as adrenaline starts going into overdrive gazing down the lane to the world beyond. You can see the merge, you can see the four lanes open up half a mile down the road, if you could only hit the gas. And then, after 45 minutes, you speedily dart through the bottle neck and you’re riding high with limited cars and the freeway is yours. Speed limit be damned! That’s ART.
Post confinement, that’s when the true Artistry begins, the expression of all that knowledge, tools, failures, struggles. The highway is Open. I know the rules of the game, and how to play and how to break ’em. Get me a my brushes, I’m going to paint the town! No one ever built a dynasty knocking it out of the park at every attempt. Where’s the expansion and development? So why would your first few months put you on the same level as someone who’s spent the better part of their life devoted to X or Y craft? Don’t kid yourself, but don’t give up either.
Cherish this moment. Celebrate it. Build on it, but maybe don’t quit your day job just yet? Find your niche, your community, you fellow strugglers, and if you’re lucky enough, a Master to commune with. Experiment, try everything, take more baby steps, but don’t overstep the process. The time is your friend, it’s everything. I’m here in the meantime time, taking a few more steps ahead of you.
Keep Walking, Keep Creative, Call Karjaka.
