Skills to Pay the Bills

All artists, whether it’s a painter, draftsman, writer, musician, actor, or anyone else, need to have a certain level of proficiency before creating their art. For art at the highest level, art that changes the world, that proficiency will likely be at the world-class level. Even for art that changes a single individual or small number of people, the artist will need to have some skill. That skill involves technique that is learned over time.

Time to develop that skill is crticial for developing artists. Geoff Colvin’s excellent book  “Talent is Overrated” and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” both describe that many years (10 actually)  or many hours (10,000 hours actually) of deliberate practice are required to become world-class at anything. This theory contradicts the prevalent assumption that the people who are the best in the world at something got that way from genetics or innate talent, not practice. I’m fully convinced that this deliberate practice is necessary for excelling at anything that requires skill, including art and building innovative products.

I view that the artist needs to develop his craft prior to creating good art. I personally try to do this when drawing by focusing on specific techniques when I practice. For example, lately at least twice a week (I wish I could do this more, but I have a day job), I go to Starbucks and spend an hour working on either an “angles and lines” technique to practice proportions, modeling factors to practice realistic shading, or anatomy. The deliberate practice can occasionally get boring, but I know I’m stretching my skills and I’m getting better.

It’s actually the same when I train for triathlons. Six days a week I work out by either running, biking, or swimming, and I’ll also lift weights three times a week. All of these activities are deliberate practice activities. Sometimes I’m working on a “fast” run to build up my speed. Other times I’m intentionally running slow, but for a longer distance, to teach my body how to properly use fat, while maintaining a low heartrate. My swim sessions are full of drills that focus on technique. In all cases, the end goal for all of my workouts, is to get better – either through technique, speed, or endurance.

To become world class takes time. I started drawing a couple years ago and I started training for triathlons last year. Based on Colvin’s book, if I consistently practice drawing for 10 years, I might become one of the world’s best. I don’t doubt that is true and I feel I could do it if I keep it up. Unfortunately, I’m getting older and I regret that I didn’t start when I was a lot younger. I don’t plan on changing careers – although it would be interesting to retire from my current job and work on creating world-class art in my retirement. Triathlons, and pretty much any other sport that requires strenuous activity, are different. Since we are all fighting age and the human body typically peaks for most sports in the late teens or early twenties, that makes it difficult for all of us to take up these sports at an older age, and expect to excel at them. In this case, for triathlons, I’m happy to just slowly improve over time while keeping in shape.

Deliberate practice also affects the innovator. In this case, the software developer, the program manager in product development, or designer can spend many years working on their craft. Part of this is acquiring domain knowledge. Darwin spent many years studying geology and biology before coming up with his theory of natural selection. Most people assume that innovation happens in a “eureka” moment, where the inventor comes up with the idea out of nowhere. In some cases, the innovator themselves, think that’s the case, because they happen onto the idea while they are daydreaming or doing something else. Einstein said that his best ideas came from when he was shaving. I’ll describe why this is the case in a few of my future posts, but for now I’ll simply say that the years of acquiring domain knowledge in their area of expertise directly affected these “eureka” moments.

But technique and skill doesn’t make art. It is just a foundation to build on. As Seth Godin writes in “Linchpin”

Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient.

An artist is an individual who creates art. The more people you change, the more you change them, the more effective your art is.

Art is not related to craft, except to the extent that the craft helps deliver the change.

I personally believe that you need both technique/skill and this other thing, which I’ll call creativity for now, to create art. The next few blog posts will build up to a framework that describes how you use both to become more innovative and creative by tapping into the artist in all of you.