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[This Year's December Days Theme is Community, and all the forms that it takes. If you have some suggestions about what communities I'm part of (or that you think I'm part of) that would be worth a look, let me know in the comments.]
There are some communities where the bar of entry is really very low. There are a lot of people are part of that commmunity, although many of the people who are in that community will not say they are part of it, because they believe that claiming membership in those communities requires a much higher level of skill or ability to meet what they perceive as the basics. This is ususally a situation where I reach for Ira Glass's commentary about the difference between skill and taste, and point out that most people think of membership in these kinds of communities is having met the threshold of skill meeting taste.
I do this, too. Even in the presence of other people saying that I am part of that community. Because there's both the skill-taste barrier, but also the tendency to make comparative statements and say that it's not possible that I can be part of that community because I'm not as good as other people who are also in this community.
I come back again to something that I talked about in an earlier December Days series, to point out to myself that I have been doing a fair amount of drawing since the last time I talked about it. I still don't believe skill has caught taste, and that's mostly because I'm in the copying phase. In previous iterations, I might have believed that I needed to improve significantly before I could begin to be part of the community of people who draw things, but truthfully, that's a community that's much bigger than we think, precisely because "people who draw things" is a community that doesn't have a requirement of skill, form, or specific elements. It's very inclusive.
( The community of people who draw is big and expansive, so long as they don't put more stringent requirements on what they mean by that. )
And, honestly, all of it is practice in one way or another. Some things are easier to do after having done them once a week for a few weeks, and coming back to doing these whiteboard drawings each time means I'm slightly better at it this time around than I was the last time. Eventually skill might very well catch up to taste. Or maybe it won't. But I do know that I'm part of the community of people who draw things, and I feel a little less nervous or worried now about drawing things when given the opportunity to do so. At least, so long as it's not something that's srs bzns or otherwise set up in such a way that all of those brain blocks are going to come into play. I'm not planning on becoming a person who draws things professionally at any time. But the journey that started at "I Can't Draw" has managed to at least move to the point of "I don't draw professionally/well."
There are some communities where the bar of entry is really very low. There are a lot of people are part of that commmunity, although many of the people who are in that community will not say they are part of it, because they believe that claiming membership in those communities requires a much higher level of skill or ability to meet what they perceive as the basics. This is ususally a situation where I reach for Ira Glass's commentary about the difference between skill and taste, and point out that most people think of membership in these kinds of communities is having met the threshold of skill meeting taste.
I do this, too. Even in the presence of other people saying that I am part of that community. Because there's both the skill-taste barrier, but also the tendency to make comparative statements and say that it's not possible that I can be part of that community because I'm not as good as other people who are also in this community.
I come back again to something that I talked about in an earlier December Days series, to point out to myself that I have been doing a fair amount of drawing since the last time I talked about it. I still don't believe skill has caught taste, and that's mostly because I'm in the copying phase. In previous iterations, I might have believed that I needed to improve significantly before I could begin to be part of the community of people who draw things, but truthfully, that's a community that's much bigger than we think, precisely because "people who draw things" is a community that doesn't have a requirement of skill, form, or specific elements. It's very inclusive.
( The community of people who draw is big and expansive, so long as they don't put more stringent requirements on what they mean by that. )
And, honestly, all of it is practice in one way or another. Some things are easier to do after having done them once a week for a few weeks, and coming back to doing these whiteboard drawings each time means I'm slightly better at it this time around than I was the last time. Eventually skill might very well catch up to taste. Or maybe it won't. But I do know that I'm part of the community of people who draw things, and I feel a little less nervous or worried now about drawing things when given the opportunity to do so. At least, so long as it's not something that's srs bzns or otherwise set up in such a way that all of those brain blocks are going to come into play. I'm not planning on becoming a person who draws things professionally at any time. But the journey that started at "I Can't Draw" has managed to at least move to the point of "I don't draw professionally/well."
