Learning from Others

Picasso (always the Trickster’s apprentice) once said that when it came to painting, he’d steal from anyone but himself. I’m guessing he meant that he needed to be constantly moving within his art and that if he stopped to worry where an idea originated, he would never incorporate it into his visual vocabulary.

I believe that if an artist fails to keep broadening his or her inventive-ness, then apathy and repetition will set in. To produce one piece after another that are mere variations on a theme may suit gallery owners, critics, and museums because it makes it easier for them to promote and sell a product, but it does little to stimulate humanity. Young artists who limit their imaginations are in danger of being dishonest to themselves and their audience. Our job as creative individuals is to acknowledge, develop, and shine light on all realities, whether they be concrete or mythological–not for individual glory but because it feeds the collective unconscious and gives permission to others to widen the periphery of their vision. 

To copy another person’s work without trying to understand and reinvent it is plagiarism. But to imbibe it, reconstitute it, and breathe a fresh life into it, that’s different. That’s how we learn and grow. The Impressionists were strongly influenced by Japanese woodcuts, the Cubists by African masks; everywhere you look through the history of art there are artists learning from others by observation and interpretation. 

Nature is without a doubt the best teacher, but there are others, and many of them can be found in the museums that house the best that all our various civilizations have produced.

Materials: pencil, drawing paper, and anything else of your choosing

Time: 2 hours minimum

INSTRUCTIONS

Pick a painting, a sculpture, or any artifact that you think is sublime or just damned interesting. Study it, in real life if you can, but if that’s not possible, then in reproduction.

Start by drawing it. Doesn’t matter if you think you can draw or not. The point is to look at it and translate your looking onto paper.

Ask yourself, “Why this piece? What’s in its essence that speaks to me?”

Now start a new work. It could be a painting, a piece of writing, or maybe music; just make sure that it starts from that place inside you that was initially transfixed. Push this new work outward, away from the original and toward something different, something intrinsically personal.

For example, you could begin with one of Degas’s bronze sculptures of a young ballet dancer. Study and copy it, go to a dance studio and film the dancers, compose some music to go with the dance, then write a play that includes a dance scene.

That’s a tall order, I agree, but the idea here is not to limit yourself or prejudge where your creativity might take you.

HINT

There’s nothing wrong with starting with a Rembrandt and ending with a Pollock as long as you work through the stages in between.