The Myth of Talent
Craig M. Tanner has a nice PDF download of an article titled “The Myth of Talent” available at The Radiant Vista
We need this presence because the truth about talent is this – talent is a set of skills you develop over time through desire.
Craig has gone over a few bumps in his photographic education:
And there waiting for me in Atlanta, mailed from the Kodachrome processing plant, was
a national monument sized stack of little cardboard, slide filled boxes with all of the
photography from my trip…… And when you look up the word disappointment in the
dictionary there ought to be at least one picture of me going through each box, slide by
slide, desperately looking for, but never seeing – not even once – anything on film that
even remotely approached the awe inspiring beauty of my experience. At the time it was
the most devastating let down of my life. I had never felt so foolish. The written journal I
kept was a better record of what I saw than my photography.The truth about the images from my trip in 1988 is that not one image from that body of
work has ever been included in any of my portfolios.
Read his full article to see how he bounced back creatively and professionally. It’s worth it to get to page six and take action on his “Seven Ways to Create Your Own Space for Artistic Growth”
1) Breathe - Fear needs a timeline to exist. When we are afraid we are worried about our
past actions or possible future outcomes. Worrying about time we do not control robs us
of the power we have in the present to transform ourselves. When the fear of being a
beginner (or any other fear creeps into our minds) we can respond by simply paying
attention to our breathing. Just a few seconds of observing our breathing can dissolve our
fears by bringing us back to now and to the presence we need to be the artist we desire to
become.
Craig’s recommended reading is very good:
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
The Work by Byron Katie
Art and Fear by Ted Orland and David Bayles
The Artist Way by Julia Cameron *I’m working on it now and highly recommend it!*
Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch
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- Creativity , Inspiration , Quotes , learning
