Recently there has been a spate of articles about the best and worst college majors, along with rankings. The primary metrics used to make these determinations are median income level and unemployment rates. Also factored in in some reports were the number of people who went on to get advanced degrees.  Some articles considered return on investment as a criterion—which, of course varies by the school attended.

It probably comes as no surprise that regardless of the methodology, visual and performing arts were at or near the bottom of almost every listing. As someone who has made a respectable living from performing arts for a while now, I immediately took offense. But then I thought about it, and realized that these listings were probably accurate—given the measures used. What I found to be troubling were the measures that were not used, or, in some cases, not even considered. In all fairness, the most recent of these articles, “The most valuable college majors in 2021, ranked,” does say, “Of course, students shouldn’t pick a college major solely based on future income, unemployment rate and the amount of schooling required. STEM degrees aren’t for everyone; students will be at their most successful when pursuing a field that’s interesting to them. There’s a psychic paycheck for going into a low-paying field such as social work.” [emphasis mine]

As a performing arts educator, I know from experience that if it were not for special-interest programs, visual and performing arts among them, some students would not attend college at all. The special-interest program provides a “home” for those students who have little interest in the more traditional majors. Sir Ken Robinson provides an excellent example of the special-interest student in a YouTube video.

Additionally, there is the factor of job satisfaction. A number of individuals are happy to be working in fields that let them express their creativity, or allow them to avoid the nine-to-five existence of the office. In fact, one international study found “a significantly higher job satisfaction of artists than other occupations.”

Along with job satisfaction, comes the ability to make a contribution to society. It sounds lofty and idealistic, but some are driven by those goals and feel that visual and performing arts provide them with an avenue toward that objective.

Additionally, a foundation in the performing arts prepares majors with skills that are useful for any occupation, should the student decide, for whatever reason, to move out of the arts and into some other business as a life’s work. These skills include communication, teamwork, adaptability, self-discipline, responsibility, resilience, and self-advocacy—all basic skills for virtually any occupation.

For example, I recently had lunch with a couple whose two daughters both took undergraduate degrees in performing arts. One used the degree and skills to work for a production company and to secure roles in commercial productions—until the pandemic came, and essentially closed down all live production. She pivoted, and shifted to work as a tutor and socialization coach, and is now looking forward to future possibilities. Her sister has been undertaking an advanced degree and is working as a youth minister. Both sisters are aware that they are not in what would be considered lucrative fields, but both know how to handle what money they have. Moreover, they feel rewarded in their work and have put their performing arts skills to work in worlds that not “technically” performing, but require many of the same skills, talents, and passions.

The point of all this is, that if you are in the position of choosing a college major or advising someone who is trying to make that decision, remember that while money is certainly important, there are considerations beyond the financial. The short list includes not only basic income, but job satisfaction, working conditions, lifestyle, and creative opportunity. Success and fulfilment are about more than money.

Below is a list of black people killed by police in the US that was compiled from NPR and Wikipedia. Some of the names you will recognize; some you will not. They were living, breathing human beings who are now dead. Say their names—out loud.

• ERIC GARNER
• JOHN CRAWFORD III
• MICHAEL BROWN
• EZELL FORD
• DANTE PARKER
• MICHELLE CUSSEAUX
• LAQUAN MCDONALD
• TANISHA ANDERSON
• AKAI GURLEY
• TAMIR RICE
• RUMAIN BRISBON
• JERAME REID
• GEORGE MANN
• MATTTHEW AJIBADE
• FRANK SMART
• NATASH MCKENNA
• TONY ROBINSON
• ANTHONY HILL
• MYA HALL
• PHILLIP WHITE
• ERIC HARRIS
• WALTER SCOTT
• WILLIAM CHAPMAN II
• ALEXIA CHRISTIAN
• BRENDON GLENN
• VICTOR MANUEL LAROSA
• JONATHAN SANDERS
• FREDDIE GRAY
• JOSEPH MANN
• SALVADO ELLSWOOD
• SANDRA BLAND
• ALBERT JOSEPH DAVIS
• DARIUS STEWART
• BILLY RAY DAVIS
• SAMUEL DUBOSE
• MICHAEL SABBIE
• BRIAN KEITH DAY
• CHRISTIAN TAYLOR
• TROY ROBINSON
• ASSHAMS PHAROAH MANLEY
• FELIX KUMI
• KEITH HARRISON MCLEOD
• JUNIOR PROSPER
• LOMONTEZ JONES
• PATTERSON BROWN
• DOMINIC HUTCHINSON
• ANTHONY ASHFORD
• ALANZO SMITH
• TYREE CRAWFORD
• INDIA KAGER
• LA’VANTE BIGGS
• MICHAEL LEE MARSHALL
• JAMAR CLARK
• RICHARD PERKINS
• NATHANIEL HARRIS PICKETT
• BENNI LEE TIGNOR
• MIGUEL ESPINAL
• MICHAEL NOEL
• KEVIN MATTHEWS
• BETTIE JONES
• QUINTONIO LEGRIER
• KEITH CHILDRESS JR.
• JANET WILSON
• RANDY NELSON
• ANDRONIE SCOTT
• WENDELL CELESTINE
• DAVID JOSEPH
• CALIN ROQUEMORE
• DYZHAWN PERKINS
• CHRISTOPHER DAVIS
• MARCO LOUD
• PETER GAINES
• TORREY ROBINSON
• DARIUS ROBINSON
• KEVIN HICKS
• MARY TRUXILLO
• DEMARCUS SEMER
• WILLIE TILLMAN
• TERRILL THOMAS
• SYLVILLE SMITH
• ALTON STERLING
• PHILANDO CASTILE
• TERENCE CRUTCHER
• PAUL O’NEAL
• ALTERIA WOODS
• JORDAN EDWARDS
• AARON BAILEY
• RONELL FOSTER
• STEPHON CLARK
• ANTWON ROSE II
• BOTHAM JEAN
• PAMELA TURNER
• DOMINIQUE CLAYTON
• ATATIANA JEFFERSON
• CHRISTOPHER WHITFIELD
• CHRISTOPHER MCCORVEY
• ERIC REASON
• MICHAEL LORENZO DEAN
• BREONNA TAYLOR
• DION JOHNSON
• GEORGE FLOYD
• TONY MCDADE
• ROBERT JOHNSON JR.
• MCCALE ROSE
• DREASJON REED
• SHAUN FUHR
• MANUEL ELLIS
• DAVID MCATEE
• KAMAL FLOWERS
• MICHAEL “BLUE” THOMAS
• RAYSHARD BROOKS
• CAINE VAN PELT
• TERRON JAMMAL BOONE

Sadly, this is not a comprehensive list—and it continues to grow.

A friend of mine is a tutor who is mostly involved with coaching students on test-taking to improve their scores. Recently, however, he was given the job of working with a broadcast journalist who had been having trouble on her job. It seems that the station she worked for had recently switched from reading from paper to reading from a teleprompter. She, for some reason, was having difficulty reading the teleprompter. This would lead to a panic situation wherein she would become completely tongue-tied and flustered. Needless to say, it was a situation she needed to remedy if she was going to continue in her present occupation.

So the tutor, who is not a speech pathologist, began to experiment to see if he could get to the root of the problem. He went about this methodically, trying one thing, observing the result, then trying another. He asked colleagues who had taught voice and diction for advice; since he had a theatre background, he talked to former teachers, all the while continuing to experiment. Finally he hit on a process that helped immeasurably: vocal warm-ups. He found that if the client did vocal relaxation exercises prior to reading aloud, things went better. Then he added tongue-twisters and other articulation exercises that actors use for vocal warm-ups. The results were amazing.

The exercises seemed not only to relax the client’s mouth and throat, but her in general. She became much less stressed at having to work with the teleprompter, which led to a much more relaxed and articulate presentation. Once the breakthrough was made, it was just a matter of designing a custom vocal warm-up routine for the client that would maximize articulation and relaxation. That, in turn, increased the client’s confidence in her ability to use the teleprompter successfully.

The solution was essentially a case of returning to the basics of vocal performance. This whole situation made me think how useful it is for any artist to revisit basics from time to time. We have a tendency in our work, regardless of the area of arts in which we are involved, to move toward more complex work, work further and further removed from basic rules and principles. Sometimes we get so far away that we lose our moorings. Those are the times we most need to get back to basics.

Perhaps it would be better if we did not wait until we were so far removed from the basics of our respective arts to embrace them, since those basics are the foundation upon which our artistic endeavors are really built. It certainly could not hurt to periodically review basic practices and principles, and it might actually improve our work. Revisiting fundamentals can be especially important when we, like the client in the above story, are undergoing changes or entering a new branch of our art.

Intermittently going back to basics can not only remind us of foundational principles and practices of our arts, it may also remind us of why we are working in the arts to begin with and serve to refresh our creativity, and that is never a bad thing.

An old article on the hyperrealistic work of Leng Jun circulated through my news reader this week. Hyperrealism is probably the epitome of drawing and is practiced by only a few artists. And while such work is interesting, even amazing, it seems to exist for no other reason than itself. Perhaps that is enough.

The real question in my mind is how much skill does an artist need? Certainly not all artists have to draw as well as Leng Jun or any of the other hyperrealists to create their work, but how well do they need to draw? Do they need to be able to draw at all? It seems that if one is a visual artist, drawing is a basic skill. Even Banksy has an opinion on the matter: “All artists are prepared to suffer for their work but why are so few prepared to learn to draw?” (from his book Wall and Piece).

For that matter, how much skill does any artist need? The intuitive answer is “as much as s/he can get.” But is that the right answer? Certainly every artist needs some skill, but does very artist need as much drawing skill as Leng Jun? Some would say “no” and cite successful artists who seem to have excelled without being able to draw. Some would even use Picasso as an example; those, however, would have demonstrated that they were not familiar with his early work. The man could draw, perhaps not on the level of Leng Jun, but certainly competently.

Others, of course, would say “yes” and point to that exact same early work, arguing that had he not been able to draw well, Picasso would never have gotten to the pinnacle of his success. But did Picasso need the extreme technical mastery that Leng Jun’s work requires? I would argue that that artists do need competency in basic skills; however, they need not be “the best” at any one skill unless their specialty demands that.

Readers of this blog know that I am a fan of John Chamberlain’s sculpture but probably do not know that I have had welding training (I do not claim to be an expert, but I am competent). I have examined Chamberlain’s welds on a number of his works carefully and can verify that he was not the best welder on the planet. He did not need to be; he needed to have enough competence at welding to assemble his sculptures securely enough that they could be transported. And that he did; he had no reason to reach the level of competence expected of, say, a gas pipeline welder.

So the answer to the question, how much skill does an artist need? is that s/he needs a level of competency that allows him/her to produce his/her work without first having to improve his skill level. Certainly, artists-in-training should seek to master skills basic to their art, but have no real need to go beyond that. There is much more learn about to creating art than an extreme skill level. There is creativity, thought, expressiveness, and ability to communicate just to mention a few. To do the sort of work that he wants to do, Leng Jun needs a very high level of drawing skill; other artists, doing other sorts of drawing/painting do not need that level of expertise. For example, LeRoy Neiman needed drawing skill to produce his paintings, but because his work was far more expressionistic, he did not need the same level of that particular skill; it did require, however, other things.

So as we prepare ourselves for our next projects, it is well for us to remember that we need not be absolute experts in every skill that our work requires; we do, however, need a level of expertise that allows us to create artifacts to carry our ideas to our audience, with maybe a little left over.

Any day that you learn something is a good day; any day that you learn multiple things is an amazing day. I had one of those recently.  The day was to be the opening of a show I had directed; I was planning a personal project that was giving me problems; and there was heavy rain in Houston area. As the day progressed, I learned not one, but five important things. Maybe learned is the wrong word; some of these things I already knew, at least theoretically, but having them so strongly reinforced was like learning them all over again.

1. Trust your subconscious. The first lesson of the day had to do with that personal project and occurred while I was in the shower. The solution of one of the problems that I had been beating my head against for a week suddenly appeared—not tentatively, but full-blown and complete. I can only assume that since I had all the associated facts in my head but could not consciously find a solution, my subconscious took over and worked on it while I slept. I don’t know that this is the ideal way to solve all problems, but letting the brain do its thing is highly recommended.
2. Worry is pointless. About 2:30 pm, one of the lead actors in the show texted to say that he was flooded in and might not be able to get to the theatre that evening; he would try, but his appearance was far from certain. I texted the stage manager and told her to alert the understudy, who, I was sure, was underprepared. That she could not find him was cause for concern. I suggested she try his girlfriend, and there he was. At this point I realized that I had done all I could do. The actor would appear or not, and the understudy would go on or not. There was literally nothing I could do at this point to impact the outcome of the evening. So instead of fretting, which would have been my usual path, I asked everyone to keep me posted via text and took a much-needed nap; it was a far better choice.
3. Trust your staff. Knowing that the understudy was probably underprepared, the stage manager called him early and had him come in to freshen up blocking and lines and to familiarize himself with the show props he had never touched. Evidently, she did this quite methodically, knowing that it would help not only his preparedness but his state of mind. By the time the actor appeared, the understudy was a prepared as he could be, because the stage manager had indeed managed the situation.
4. Truth can be found in unexpected places. You may have had the experience of reading or (if, like me you are an audio book fan) listening to a book, and having truth jump out at you. It may have been something you thought and the author put into words for you, or it may have been an observation about people or life that struck you as terribly insightful. (Sometimes, such statements impact me so much they appear in my blog posts.) Those moments are to me like finding jewels in the gravel. This happened on the same day. The book was The City of Mirrors (Book 3 of the Passage Trilogy) by Justin Cronin. Cronin had put some observations about people that struck me as remarkably insightful into the minds and mouths of his characters. It was like getting an unexpected present.
5. Project completion is a joy in and of itself, and worth celebrating. I went to the theatre for opening night. My part in the production was complete; the show was now in the hands of the stage manager and the actors. That, for me, is always a bitter-sweet experience. The joy comes from having experienced the process and from knowing that completion of one project always opens the way to the next project.

Try as we might, it’s not every day that we get to learn something, and in my experience, any day that brings multiple learnings is worth celebrating, or at least remarking upon. So I did. Hopefully, the things I learned last Saturday will resonate with you as well.

There have been a lot of posts about artists and obsession and the integral connection between the two.  But what of those who are not really obsessed in a single direction? They are not driven to engage in a specific art, i.e. to paint or act or write, but they are driven to make art or some kind. These are those who recognize that they “can’t not art.” What are they to do and how are they to do it? Or how about those who decide that multiple personal revenue streams make sense (as a number of contemporary financial advisors suggest).

We are not set up for polymaths.

Some of those who “can’t not art” have a vague notion of what art they want to work in. They may want to do two-dimensional art or they may want to work in music or they may want to do theatre. What they don’t know is which specific area or specialization of the overall field they want to work in.

We are not set up for undecides.

By we, I mean arts training programs.

Collegiate systems and, to a lesser degree, private training programs are all set up to train students in a single area. With few exceptions these programs expect students to come in with a specialization in mind so they can be slotted into the exact program that trains the student in that specialty. In a few programs there is concern that students be exposed to all specialties within an art, but, for the most part, programs are supporting a very specific type vocational training or area of concentration.  The only concession to a truly educated student population is the forced core curriculum. But even that does not foster a real well-rounded education, and there certainly is no exposure to all the sub-disciplines within an art.

This approach coupled with mandated hour requirements for a degree restricts students’ exploration. For public institutions, the state legislature determines that only n credit hours and not more can be counted toward a degree, and those hours and their relation to the degree plan are subject to local, state, and federal scrutiny for financial aid purposes. So the student is not allowed to explore a multiplicity of areas.

How is the student supposed to find the right path when the system requires that he/she establish an educational path to a career when he/she is eighteen years old? And how many eighteen-year-old know what they really want to do for a career, particularly when the choices are restricted?

So the polymaths and undecideds are just screwed…

Unless they can find a program that requires that they learn all areas of an art. In such programs students can experience a number of sub-disciplines and then make a far more intelligent decisions about which of those sub-disciplines is the best fit for them. Some even choose multiple areas to generate multiple revenue streams. There are a number of actors, for example, who support themselves when they are not in a show by doing technical theatre or management work.

But such programs are in the minority.

So the polymaths and the undecideds have to do it themselves. They can take courses outside their degree plans or online or in non-credit programs to obtain background. But the best way to learn is to actually work in the field; the explorer can get an internship (paid is better) and find out if a particular area fits. A young person I know who “can’t not art” is going to do exactly that. She told me that she was going to take the time to “dip [her] toes into several ponds” before she made a final decision. A wise approach, I think.

“Acting is my passion!!” is a statement those of us who teach theatre have heard more times than we care to think about. And for one in a hundred, it’s true. For most, it’s what one is says when one is studying drama and has not yet discovered his/her true passion, or maybe even his/her real direction.

For most theatre (and other arts) students there are tens if not hundreds of choices. Everything interests them, so with such an overabundance of choice, it becomes easier to settle on one that seems comfortable and desirable and expected than it is to explore all of the possibilities to discover one’s actual passion. So they profess that acting is their passion and their life.

All one has to do is watch, and the actions of these will tell you whether they want to really be actors or not. People who are passionate about acting will behave like they are passionate about acting. They want to learn all they can about the craft. They want to do actual acting. If they’re not doing it, they’re talking about it or reading about it, or watching it or thinking about it, all of which, for an artist, is part of doing.

Just like writers in the anecdotes who would write on any scrap of paper they could find, those who are passionate about acting, who must act, will find a way. They may not become professional actors, but they might. They might find that some other path provides a better opportunity for income, so the passion gets relegated to the status of hobby or side-job; others go the other way: they take side-jobs so they can afford to be a professional at the work that is their passion.

“People are known by their actions, not their words.”   It’s a sentiment that gets attributed to lots of people in lots of time and places. It’s also true. If a student indicates by actions that he/she doesn’t want what he/she says is wanted, then that student is not being truthful or he/she cannot connect want and behavior.

If a student who has declared acting to be his/her life spends more time on computer games, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he/she wants to be a professional computer gamer, but rather that he/she doesn’t want to be an actor. What such a student really wants is impossible to determine; it may be some other area of drama or completely outside the theatrical universe.

The larger problem comes when the artist-to-be doesn’t know where or how to look elsewhere. Some of us, teachers or not, have encountered this same problem before we found the path that led to the passion that has brought us to where we are today. So now we owe it to these young artists (whether they are students or not) to guide them away from that which obviously is not their passion and encourage them to discover what really kindles their imaginations, what, once discovered, they can’t not do.

And we must remind them that there really are no restrictions on which paths to explore. I know a number or people who, had they felt really free to explore without limits when they were young, would have ended up with far different artistic lives.

Almost everyone advises us to follow our passion. Sound advice, I think, but you can’t follow it if you can’t find it.

The difference between Broadway actors and student actors is often not talent—at least not completely. It is the energy, focus, presence, and ability to exist in the moment for the length of the show and the length of the run. These are things that are difficult to teach and difficult to learn, at least to judge by what we see in the classroom—and on stage. However, I recently saw an outstanding example of these qualities in an actor, and that caused me to rethink.

What happened was that I accepted an invitation to a final dress rehearsal of a children’s musical. The cast was made up of acting instructors, mostly members on Actor’s Equity, one child lead, and an ensemble made up of selected students. Never having seen a children’s show by this particular organization, I had no idea what to expect, nor did I know who was involved, since there were no programs at this rehearsal. I was pleasantly surprised. Production values were excellent; I had seen some of the adult performers work before and was not disappointed in this production. The ensemble consisted of 15-20 kids of varying ages; all had wireless microphones, indicating to me that they were not just background, but were expected to really sing and be heard. And they acquitted themselves well. The identical precision that one sees in a seasoned ensemble was missing, of course, but what replaced it was a youthful energy and individual interpretation of direction and choreography that revealed a great deal about each actor’s mindset and level of development (a blog for another time, perhaps).

What really struck me was a single member of the ensemble. This was a young woman of about 14 (her age was later confirmed). When the ensemble was singing and dancing, she most often occupied a position immediately left of whichever principal was featured in the number. She did not need the propitious positioning to be noticed. It is difficult to remember any performer who exhibited more focus, energy, concentration, and presence than this teenager. I later learned that several other audience members had a similar response.

In every number, she was fully engaged, focused, and performing with an energy that is seldom equaled. And she did it number after number. So rare is this type of performance that I found myself waiting for her next stage appearance and concentrating on her more than the principals. If there was music playing, she was channeling it with her whole body whether she was singing or not. When there was no music, she slipped convincingly into whatever character she was playing at the time.

Some would say that the director should have asked her to tone it down. I have to disagree. Given that she was working with professionals, the director should have asked those professionals to step up their game. This was not a case of “the kid was cute;” this was a case of the kid was superlative.

Why take the time to write about an ensemble member I do not know in a children’s show that has already closed? Because what she did was exactly what we who teach want actors to do: exist in the moment, completely focused on the role, hitting the stage with outstanding presence, and performing with unflagging, almost preternatural energy.

A more important question is why this teenager exhibited these characteristics and other same-aged members of the ensemble with the same teachers did not. My guess is that she not only listened to her teachers, but somehow had the internal mental and emotional mechanisms to put it all together.

That is the part that nobody I know knows exactly how to teach. We all say essentially the same things about concentration, focus, energy, presence, mindfulness and the necessity of these qualities. We provide exercises and methodologies. But only one in 50 (if that many) will put it all together. Those are the ones who get the work. Those are the ones who, when they are on stage, we must watch.

These are difficult qualities to instill in students. One wonders if we just haven’t yet figured out how to teach our students how put it all together, or if it is inborn and we just help develop it. My suspicion is that it is a combination of several factors: the instructor’s ability to clearly explain these difficult concepts coupled with the students’ ability to absorb information and the individual student’s mental, emotional, spiritual makeup, plus all those other factors, unique to each student, that determine the level of the student’s commitment and his/her willingness to implement new ideas.

Whether I have an acting class or not, this subject occupies my thoughts frequently. If you have any related thoughts you would like to share, I would certainly appreciate hearing them.

One of the problems of the 21^st century is the glut of information. How do you know what to give attention to and then how do you separate the worthwhile stuff from all the rest? My solution is fivefold:

1. Use a good news reader to aggregate the articles that you might be interested in and keep them in one place. There are a number of newsreaders out there that can be used on your smartphone, tablet, or desktop; most are free, but you might put in a little time researching since different readers have different features, and you want to be certain you get the one that fits you.
2. Use your reader software to subscribe to worthwhile websites and sit back and wait for the information you want to arrive.
3. Scan the headlines and articles of interest. Read only those that really make you pause.
4. Scan regularly; otherwise you will be buried in information.
5. Prune from time to time. Sites appear, move, change, and disappear, so updating your list in a timely fashion will ensure that you are getting the information you want.

To help you on your way, I have listed here (alphabetically) my favorite arts sites with a tiny explanation of why I think they are worth considering.

• “Art Attack” is a collection of Houston Press art and culture blogs and stories. These range from local to international and include some regular “columns” that are worthwhile.
• “Art Biz Blog” is a blog where Alyson Stanfield deals with topics related to the business side of art: everything from practical “how-to” articles to thought-provoking articles related to the business of art.
• “Artist Marketing Resources” is Maria Kazalia’s blog which features articles designed to address all aspects of the art-marketing problem. She presents lots of sound advice and useful resources.
• “Arts and Letters Daily” Daily in-depth articles about subjects related to arts and letters. It gives you a teaser so you can decide if you really want to read the article.
• “Arts on Huffington Post or “Huffpost Arts & Culture” is a compendium of arts news from around the world. This is one that you have to pay attention to for a couple of reasons: first, almost anything that is anything in the contemporary arts world is reported here. Second, if you don’t watch it, your news reader will collect hundreds of posts from this feed; the number of daily postings is astounding.
• “Arts Journal: Daily Arts News” is another aggregate site, but instead of whole articles there are summaries and links which makes your scanning and evaluating even faster. This site will often have the stuff that Huffpost doesn’t.
• “The Art Newspaper” is a collection of up-to-date international art news.
• “Austin Kleon” is a blog named for its author, Austin-based poet, writer, and artist. Kleon always has something worth reading, whether it’s his latest blackout poem or observations and advice on creativity.
• “Beautiful Minds” is Scientific American’s blog on the mind by Scott Barry Kaufman. Well-researched and documented, these are complete in-depth articles.
• Brain Pickings is Maria Popova’s outstanding site that provides articles on art, thought, and creativity. Popova documents heavily and scatters pithy quotes throughout. Her site should be required reading for all thinking artists.
• “The Creative Mind” presents Douglas Eby’s writings on creativity and the plethora of issues and conditions associated with creativity.
• “Glasstire Texas Visual Art News” offersTexas arts news.
• “Juxtapose Magazine” is an in-your-face collection of articles and features about contemporary art, or art that is making contemporary news. Some of the work covered is a bit edgy.
• “The 99 Percent” presents articles and interviews by a variety of writers. The common thread is that all the articles are about ideas and creativity. Some interesting stuff can be found here.
• “Self vs. Self” is Hazel Dooney’s blog. Subtitled “Outside the White Space,” the blog contains the passionate and insightful writing of this successful Australian artist. Dooney has not posted since 2013 for a number of reasons (search online if you really want to know), but this archive contains eight years of worthwhile reading about the role of the individual artist and his/her relation to the gallery system as well as other thoughts on art-related topics.
• “Seth’s Blog” is Seth Godin’s daily musings and advice. The proponent of tribe theory has daily suggestions for marketing and shipping the work as well as keeping the business side of things running effectively and efficiently. He always provides food for thought, usually in very small doses.

This list is far from exhaustive, and it’s only a starting point. It contains the arts sites I already scan on a regular basis, but I would really be interested to hear your nominations too.

Remember, you can never have too much information—if it’s the right information, and if you can manage it.

In talking with a former student about a paying gig she had just booked, I mentioned her talent, among other things. She replied, “Talent is nothing if you weren’t taught how to access it and use it.” She’s right, of course, but I had never thought about it in exactly those terms.

Those who teach in the arts beyond the secondary level are aware that talent by itself is not enough. This often comes as a surprise to our students, who have been told since they were able to perform in whatever art they excel how talented they were and how that would insure success as they grew to adulthood. They were misinformed, although probably with the best intentions.

Parents, with few exceptions, have no frame of reference for talent. They know only that their progeny excel at some art or the other and that praise is being heaped on their child by teachers and friends, and so, because they are proud, they join the party. The problem comes when the child develops the expectation of success based on the responses they have garnered in the past. At the very least, they need to memorize that disclaimer that comes on all investment portfolios: “past performance does not guarantee future results.” It doesn’t.

So the children go to high school and join a small pool of other talented peers and form their own clique, the members of which get all the leads in the plays, win all the art prizes, and continue to impress parents and friends. All are encouraged to continue developing their art.

Then they get to college, where they are in class with 25 others who are equally talented, and they begin to realize that they may not be all that special after all. This notion comes home with a vengeance when they realize that they and the other 25 members of their class are really the underclass, that there are three more years of equally talented and more experienced artists ahead of them, and on top of that are the smaller percentage of those who are graduate students. It should be obvious that no matter how much talent each individual has, the rewards are fewer than the number of people in the room, so, if they are to excel, they will have to learn to access and use the talent they have and then go beyond that.

Still, it takes some counseling and convincing to persuade these students that talent is not enough. Not only must they learn how to use their talents, they must combine that with a willingness to work. Stephen King was exactly right when he said, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” King is not the only person who has voiced this opinion. One can read similar quotations by people as diverse as Andrew Carnegie, Irving Stone, Aleister Crowley, Lou Holtz, Émile Zola, and Kurt Vonnegut.

And sometimes even talent and hard work are not enough. Success, however, you define it, is elusive, and for some seems to remain just out of reach. And although there are no guarantees, there is no question that we have a far better chance with talent and hard work than with either alone. And there is no question that the art we produce will be better than if we tried to rely on talent alone.