Musings

On Talent and Skill

Many people equate “skill” and “talent.”  They are sometimes related, but certainly not the same thing.  It is like the modern conflation of “jealousy,” “covetousness, ” and “envy.”  All are related as manifestations of the same base impulse, but they are not the same (envy being the most pernicious).

But back to “skill” and “talent.”

I possess precious little artistic talent, but have acquired fair-to-middling creative skills.  I remember clearly a session in the studio of one of my art classes in college.  I was succeeding in the class by sheer grit and inordinate time working in the studio; the art didn’t flow out of me simply because the talent was not there.  But I was determined to succeed and spent untold hours at work there.  One day I asked Mrs. Barn to come with me and keep me company as I worked, and as we walked there she picked up a branch of some flowering tree or something.  So while I ground away at my “creating” she whipped out a lovely oil painting of the sprig even though she never trained as an artist.  But she has sublime artistic talents while I am saddled with a noteworthy lack of them.

I’m not sure if curiosity is a talent, but I do have a fair bit of that.  Perhaps my greatest creative gift was that I was an indifferent student in school prior to my third stint in college, when I worked and learned with a vengeance.  But middle school and high school?  Nah, I did not pay enough attention to enable them to beat the curiosity out of me and I was able to retain my native impulse to color outside the lines.

Talent is, I believe, a portion of that inventory of nascent gifts imparted at our conception as unique creatures, whereas skills are the abilities honed through repetitive exercises.  That said, the vocabulary of skills we possess allows us to expand our creative and productive capacity to a nearly limitless vista, and to hone those natural talents.

As a craftsman and teacher that is where I try to invest my resources.

I am at a point in my life where my writing is an output that has value in the marketplace, all the more surprising to me in that I went to gubmint schools at a time when the rigors of language arts were, shall we say, not emphasized.  Now I practice writing on a near-daily basis to sharpen my skills of wordsmithing.  This occurs on this blog as often as I can even though many acquaintances urge me to de-emphasize my writing here in exchange for “more followers” via other vehicles that do not require anything more than a few pictures and words on a smart phone.  I have resisted this for several reasons, not the least of which is I do not have a smart phone and have little interest in getting one given that I live in a place with almost no cell service.  Second, if my goal is to increase my ability in crafting words, I’d better spend some time crafting words rather than avoiding it.  An analogy would be encouraging someone to refine their joinery skills at the workbench by giving them a screw gun.

Instead, for the time being I prefer to write short articles for this blog a few times a week as a means of not only connecting with those who read it but also accomplishing the not-so-unintended-consequence of  improving my own writing skill set.  I know I will never become as facile as Chris Schwarz given both his natural talents and honed skills that enable him to have a daily output capacity of probably four thousand words.  I hope for a tenth of that, and dream of a quarter, a pace I actually maintained while writing the 40,000 word first draft manuscript of Virtuoso in six weeks.

For the past few years I have endeavored to write something every day.  A blog essay, even if only a short one, or at least a portion of one (some blogs take a few sessions of verbal noodling).  Or another portion of my ongoing book manuscript, at present The Period Finisher’s Manual (I am targeting the end of the year for its completion).  Some mystery/thriller fiction, currently about a derelict antiques restorer out in the mountains and how he eventually saves the world.  Blowing off steam by recording pithy observations about the state of the world around me.

It is all enjoyable and ruthlessly demanding, but it is how I am building my muscles in formulating and organizing ideas and putting them into words.

Simply put, the regimen makes me more skilled at writing.

The same is true with my physical craft.  As a furniture maker I will not and probably cannot become Jean-Henri Riesener, John Goddard, Alvar Aalto, or James Krenov.  I am unlikely to ever become a truly skilled engraver, or metalsmith, or machinist, or chemical engineer.  But I can become better than I am.

And so can you.

While I cannot endow you with creative genius, I can encourage and direct you in the genesis and more full formation of skills through practice and exercise.  This has become cemented as the goal for my time in The Barn on White Run; that I explore and create, and share those adventures with you that you might be more encouraged to do the same.

In the coming weeks and months I hope this will become manifest on this blog with my mercurial musings about craft and life on the homestead being augmented with more postings about the processes of  doing and not just my noumena.  One iteration of this starting next will be a series of bench exercises I presented at last year’s  banquet address for the Colonial Williamsburg Working Wood in the 18th Century shindig.

Another will be the multi-part walk-through of interpreting an early 19th century writing desk, of which I have already written a couple of blogs in the past.

And making instructional videos for distribution with a talented young local film maker.

And making and modifying tools.

And Gragg chairs.

And workbenches.

And, and, and…

All in pursuit of skills, in service to my “talent.”