Farley Lewis

Artists sometimes put pressure on themselves to produce something novel or original. They may resist imitating others in hope that they will find their own unique style. Salvador Dali said, “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” Far better to borrow from artists you respect, mash it up and make something new from it. “Completely original” is not just overrated, it’s impossible. Only God can make something out of nothing – the rest of us learn and borrow and imitate from others. Maybe that’s why Rembrandt said, “Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.”

When teaching children how to write a story, it wouldn’t make much sense to emphasize being original when they haven’t yet learned how to write a sentence. Yet we do this regularly with young artists. We push them to “be creative” before they even know how to draw a sugar cube in perspective. Art is a visual language, and like any language it must be learned. We don’t urge beginning violinists to “be creative and original on their instrument.” That comes later, after they play the music of others and learn the principles of making beautiful music with a violin.

Pursuing “style” and originality tends to produce weirdness, not good art. Rather, pursue honest, authentic art that comes from your soul. Style is what you see in the rearview mirror as you pursue excellence.

When someone says, “I’m a self-taught artist,” I sometimes think to myself, “You don’t have a very good teacher.” Learning everything completely on your own is a painfully slow way to learn anything. Why not learn from those who have figured out some of what we are trying to do? Austin Cleon writes, “What a good artist knows is nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.”

In another sense, we’re all self-taught artists, for learning a new skill requires courage, initiative and determination, regardless if we are learning from a college course, a workshop, video, book or studying the work of others.

Being original sometimes translates into having no boundaries. If we fixate on not having boundaries – in art as in life – we end up making innovation our goal, not excellence. Innovation means “I did it first.” I could be the first to put cow manure on a shingle and call it art. That might be innovative, but is that excellence in art? When innovation and originality rise to a higher value than beauty and excellence, the art world suffers for it.

Creativity is forgetting where you saw it.