Intuition in art is actually the result of a prolonged tuition.
I’ve had several artist friends recommend this to me over the years — it’s a collection of lectures Shahn delivered at Harvard in the mid-50s, many of them, appropriately, dealing with the education of the artist. (Since it questions the artists place in the university, we’ll include it in the unschooling tag.) The text is sprinkled with Shahn’s fantastic drawings.
My notes below.
Whether inside or outside of school, it is the artist’s job to get an education.
“Attend a university if you possibly can. There is no content of knowledge that is not pertinent to the work you will want to do. But before you attend a university work at something for a while. Do anything. Get a job in a potato field; or work as a grease-monkey in an auto repair shop. But if you do work in a field do not fail to observe the look and the feel of earth and of all things that you handle—yes, even potatoes! Or, in the auto shop, the smell of oil and grease and burning rubber. Paint of course, but if you have to lay aside paintings for a time, continue to draw. Listen well to all conversations and be instructed by them and take all seriousness seriously. Never look down upon anything or anyone as not worthy of notice. In college or out of college, read. And form opinions! Read Sophocles and Euripides and Dante and Proust. Read everything that you can find about art except the reviews. Read the Bible; read Hume; read Pogo. Read all kinds of poetry and know many poems and many artists. Go to an art school, or two, or three, or take art courses at night if necessary. And paint and paint and draw and draw. Know all that you can, both curricular and noncurricular—mathematics and physics and economics, logic, and particularly history. Know at least two languages besides your own, but anyway, know French. Look at pictures and more pictures. Look at every kind of visual symbol, every kind of emblem; do not spurn signboards or furniture drawings or this style of art or that style of art. Do not be afraid to like paintings honestly or to dislike them honestly, but if you do dislike them retain an open mind. Do not dismiss any school of art, not the Pre-Raphaelites nor the Hudson River School nor the German Genre painters. Talk and talk and sit at cafes, and listen to everything, to Brahms, to Brubeck, to the Italian hour on the radio. Listen to preachers in small town churches and in big city churches. Listen to politicians in New England town meetings and to rabble-rousers in Alabama. Even draw them. And remember that you are trying to learn to think what you want to think, that you are trying to coordinate mind and hand and eye. Go to all sorts of museums and galleries and to the studios of artists. Go to Paris and Madrid and Rome and Ravenna and Padua. Stand alone in Sainte Chapelle, in the Sistine Chapel, in the Church of the Carmine in Florence. Draw and draw and paint and learn to work in many media; try lithography and aquatint and silk-screen. Know all that you can about art, and by all means have opinions. Never be afraid to become embroiled in art or life or politics; never be afraid to learn to draw or paint better than you already do; and never be afraid to undertake any kind of art at all, however exalted or however common, but do it with distinction.”
“Art and artists often exist within a public climate that is either indifferent or hostile to their profession.”
However glorious the history of art, the history of artists is quite another matter. And in any well-ordered household the very thought that one of the young may turn out to be an artist can be a cause for general alarm. It may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospect of having Van Gogh himself in the living room would put a good many devoted art lovers to rout.
Just because art is popular doesn’t mean it sucks, and just because it’s unpopular doesn’t mean it’s good.
One of the very recherche bases of evaluation but still one that dominates both the world of criticism and that of creative art is an inversion of the common standard of popularity. The reasoning goes something like this: public taste has often failed to understand very great art, has indeed violently rejected it. This very art, however, so often has been richly vindicated by time and subsequent tastes. Logically, then, it seems to follow that if a piece of work is truly great it will necessarily be rejected by the public. Here the inversion begins to emerge, for the belief has thus become universal among refined people that if a work of art is thoroughly incomprehensible to the public it must automatically be good. And out of that non-Aristotelian reasoning comes the following principle widely proclaimed by artists and by critics: the work of art must not appeal to the public, or be understood by it. “I hope,” says one artist, “that I will never win public approval, for if I do I know my work is bad.” “I tremble,” says an eminent poet, “when I think of what will happen if the classics become available to the masses.”
Like most artists I am deeply offended by the application of public approval as a standard for the evaluation of art. But I am certainly equally in disagreement with that curiously perverse standard of nonapproval. For however degraded the public intelligence may have become through long-term, calculated efforts to pander to it, or however spoiled the public eye, it is still the public itself that is the reality of our culture. Here is the fertile soil in which to sow your lilies. He is the source of manifold instances of art, the wellspring of emotions that are not warmed-over, and of unexpected, unique detail. We, as artists, may exist upon the fringe of this reality or we may be an essential part of it; that is up to us.”
There is no security or guaranteed success for the artist.
No one can promise success to an intended painter. Nor is the problem of painting one of success at all. It is rather one of how much emphasis one places upon self-realization, upon the things that he thinks. I believe that the individual whose interests are measurable primarily in terms of money, or even of success, would do well to avoid a lifetime of painting. The primary concern of the serious artist is to get the thing said—and wonderfully well. His values are wholly vested in the object which he has been creating. Recognition is the wine of his repast, but its substance is the accomplishment of the work itself.
There are many kinds of security, and one kind lies in the knowledge that one is dedicating his hours and days doing the things that he considers most important. Such a way of spending one’s time may be looked upon by some as a luxury and by others as a necessity.
Art has its roots in “real life” — the artist must be both “deeply involved” in the world and somewhat “detached” from it.
Shahn emphasizes over and over again that the artist must be part of the world, but at the same time, he must be able to step back and observe it for what it is.
He must never fail to be involved in the pleasures and the desperations of mankind, for in them lies the very source of feeling upon which the work of art is registered. Feeling, being always specific and never generalized, must have its own vocabulary of things experienced and felt.
What I think he’s talking about is what Postman & Weingartner in Teaching As A Subversive Activity call “the anthropological perspective”:
We are talking about the schools’ cultivating in the young that most “subversive” intellectual instrument—the anthropological perspective. This perspective allows one to be part of his own culture and, at the same time, to be out of it. One views the activities of his own group as would an anthropologist, observing its tribal rituals, its fears, its conceits….
If there is a danger of school, it’s that it takes the artist away from the world.
While Shahn praises the university as a “community in the fullest sense of the word, a place of residence, and at the same time one of personal affirmation and intellectual rapport,” he cautions against setting up an insular “nursery school” environment for artists. “I am generally mistrustful of contrived situations,” he writes. “That is, situations peculiarly set up to favor the blossoming of art.” He also has problems with artist colonies:
They become almost monastic in the degree of their withdrawal from common society; and thus their art product becomes increasingly ingrown, tapping less and less the vital streams of common experience, rejecting more and more the human imperatives which have propelled and inspired art in past times.
Shahn laments the “teacher who was formerly an artist”:
What if Goya, for instance, had been granted a Guggenheim, and then, completing that, had stepped into a respectable and cozy teaching job in some small—but advanced!—New England college, and had thus been spared the agonies of the Spanish Insurrection? The unavoidable conclusion is that we would never have had “Los Caprichos” or “Los Desastres de la Guerra.”
He writes that if the “university’s fostering of art is only kindly, is only altruistic, it may prove to be also meaningless.”
It is only within the context of real life that an artist (or anyone) is forced to make [choices about his own values and wants]. And it is only against a background of hard reality that choices count, that they affect a life, and carry with them that degree of belief and dedication and, I think I can say, spiritual energy, that is a primary force in art.
Self-education is not out of the question.
There is no rule, no current, about self-education any more than there is about advantages or disadvantages of birth. It is historically true that an impressive number of self-educated individuals have also been brilliantly educated: widely read, traveled, cultured, and thoroughly knowledgeable, not to mention productive. The dramatist who has had perhaps the greatest influence upon the contemporary theater stopped school at the age of thirteen. The painter who has set world taste in art is almost entirely self-educated. That does not mean uneducated, for each of these two people is almost unmatched in versatility of knowledge.
“Nonconformity is the basic pre-condition of art, as it is the precondition of good thinking and therefore of growth and greatness in a people.”
To create anything at all in any field, and especially anything of outstanding worth, requires nonconformity, or a want of satisfaction with things as they are. The creative person—the nonconformist—may be in profound disagreement with the present way of things, or he may simply wish to add his views, to render a personal account of matters.
“Craft is that discipline which frees the spirit; and style is the result.”
Craft itself, once an inexorable standard in art, is today an artist’s individual responsibility. Craft probably still does involve deftness of touch, ease of execution—in other words, mastery. But it is the mastery of one’s personal means.
Not sure where to send those great short stories you’ve written?
As with writing contests andfellowships, sometimes it can be hard to know where to begin. To help you figure out where to submit short stories, we’ve put together this guide to 25 publications that publish short fiction. The list includes a mix of publications across various genres and styles, ranging from prestigious, highly competitive options to those specifically seeking new and emerging voices. […]
So wayyyy back in 2013 I wrote a post on 15 steps to writing a novel, then back in 2014 I followed it up with 15 steps to getting published, up to the book deal. Now, with just two weeks and a day to go to Beyond the Red’s release, I’ve got enough background info to finish off the series. :)
Do note that the orders to these steps varies wildly publisher to publisher, and even book to book. For most, all of these steps (or at least most) will happen at some point or another as long as there is a print release, but everyone’s timeline is a little different.
That said, here we go. Fifteen steps from post-book deal to release day:
Join a debut group. This is, by no means, a mandatory step, but I very highly recommend it if you’re a debut. For me, The Sweet Sixteens and Team Rogue YA has opened up the door for a ton of opportunities (like conferences! and mini book tours!), introduced me to so many wonderful people I now consider friends, helped me feel sane during this crazy publishing process *and* given me access to amazing books early. And honestly, the support alone is so very much worth it. :)
Talk blurbs. As I said before, when this happens varies, but eventually your editor will ask you if you have any ideas as to who you’d like to ask to get some blurbs. This is a terrifying and exciting thing that eventually leads to people you admire hopefully saying nice things about your book.
Share ideas for covers. This is such a fun part of the process. At some point, your publisher will start thinking cover ideas, and often the first step is asking you, the author, about what you had in mind for the cover/what covers you like that you’d like to emulate. Mood boards are a very fun (and useful!) thing to put together.
Cover mock ups. Self-explanatory—eventually you will see versions of your cover! And it is exciting! And amazing! And YAY!
Pre-orders open. At some point, your book will magically appear on Amazon, B&N, BAM!, etc. online. And people will be able to pre-order your book, which is a surreal and amazing thing.
Cover reveal. After you’ve seen several mock-ups and changes are made and everyone is happy, it’s time to reveal the cover to the world! This is the first time people start to associate an image with your book, and it also allows you to start thinking about swag, and daydreaming about holding your book. Woot!
First pass. This is the time when you will finally get your first edit letter. For some, this is a time of wailing and gnashing of teeth. For others, it’s scary, but exciting. For some especially lucky, it’s both. How much work is involved, and how much time you have will depend on your book and your editor, but rest assured, changes will be made for the better.
Second, Third, Fourth, Final, etc. Pass. How many passes there are and when they happen, like many of the steps, will vary. But there will be plenty of passes, and you will read your book so many times you can recite passages in your sleep, and there will come a time when you feel as though you’d rather pull your fingernails off rather than read it again. This is normal. Probably. And this too shall pass. (Get it, pass? *clears throat* Anyway…)
ARCs! And then the day will come when you will get to hold your book in your hand because the ARCs have arrived! This is a super exciting/nerve-wracking time because not only do you have a book-shaped thing but many other people will get to read it too, for the first time. Ahhhhh!
More blurbs. If you didn’t get blurbs earlier, probably you will start to get them right about now. And even if you did get blurbs earlier, you are likely to get more around now too. So more admirable people saying nice things about your book. Yay!
Early reviews. Now that ARCs are in the world, reviews will start trickling in. This is where you start to decide if you’re the type of author that reads your reviews. There isn’t a right or wrong answer, really—just make sure you take care of yourself during this kind of terrifying time.
Book jacket comps. At some point, if your book is publishing in hardcover, you will see the comps for your book jacket, and now you’ll really get a sense for what your book will look like. It’s a very, very cool thing that I totally loved.
Final copies printed! RED ALERT. YOUR BOOK IS REAL.
Final copies distributed! YOUR BOOK IS IN YOUR HAND. AND ARRIVING AT BOOKSTORES. AND SOON PEOPLE WILL BUY IT. AHHHH!
RELEASE DAY. Self-explanatory and holy wow it’s real. Everything is real! HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY, YOU!
“I really am going to tell you everything you need to pursue a successful and financially rewarding career writing fiction, and I really am going to do it in ten minutes, which is exactly how long it took me to learn.”
I’ve never really worried about writer’s block. I think of breaks from writing more as “installing important updates,” focusing on input rather than output. But lately I’ve been going through a period of reader’s block, a new and frustrating experience. I haven’t been in the mood to read books or even articles. This got me thinking about the reading habits of writers; I wondered how they differed from my own. So I asked thirteen questions to ten writers I admire, working in different genres, in an attempt to discover how writers read.
—Elisa Gabbert
3) Do you ever read for “guilty pleasure”?
ALICE BOLIN: I think no. I get my trash from TV.
TEJU COLE: I read what I like. No guilt ever.
DARCIE DENNIGAN: I grew up in New England and went to Catholic school most of my life, so yes, when reading feels pleasurable, as it often does, I do feel guilty. I guess I always feel guilty when I read these days because when I’m reading, I’m shirking any number of responsibilities. The laundry, the dishes, buying my daughter shoes, finishing a freelancing project, correcting papers. The only thing I don’t feel guilty about not doing when I’m reading is writing.
But I guess you mean do I ever read anything sort of easy, just to escape? Of course. Mostly that kind of reading I do online. cnn.com is the best guilty pleasure. It’s so over the top, so ostentatious yet so conservative. They always find the scariest stories that prey on all of my fears and they barely footnote how unlikely the scenarios are. I’m sorry that I add to their number of hits every day, but I do.
JORDAN ELLENBERG: I read books I think are in certain respects bad, like the “Twelve” series, which is about psychic vampires. But I don’t feel guilty about it. I think I’m reading those books for a reason.
GRAHAM FOUST: You mean like US Weekly or something? Sometimes I do, but I don’t feel all that guilty about it.
RUTH GRAHAM: Of course!
J. ROBERT LENNON: I have never in my life felt guilty for reading anything.
ADA LIMÓN: Oh yes, I love guilty pleasures. Depending on what’s going on in my life, I will read popular novels (all of Gillian Flynn’s thrilling and gruesome books) or even get on a British detective novel kick. I devoured all of Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler detective novels and Robert Goddard’s mysteries. Oh, and yes, I read all the magical Deborah Harkness novels over a particularly hard winter when witches and vampires just made more sense than life. I don’t know if I think of it as “guilty pleasure” reading really, but more like necessary mental escapes. Sometimes we need a perfectly written sentence; sometimes we need a fast-paced transporter to take us out and away. The best is when they go hand in hand.
LEIGH STEIN: A few years ago, my friend Catherine Lacey told me there’s no such thing as guilty pleasure; there’s only pleasure. I like that. In any case, there’s nothing I read that I feel guilty about.
LAURA VAN DEN BERG: Not really. I have so many other guilty pleasures. I live for bad TV. Scandal, Pretty Little Liars, all the Law & Orders—I could watch for hours. I prefer bad TV to good TV, frankly. Same goes for movies. Little makes me happier than a chance to re-watch, say, Demolition Man in the middle of the afternoon. But the wooden dialogue and the melodrama and the terrible pyrotechnics I find so entertaining on the screen would pain me on the page. I’m only really interested in reading stuff I find seriously interesting on both an aesthetic and human level. Perhaps this is because I read virtually nothing as a kid, save for The National Enquirer, and as a result still have a lot of catching up to do.
