Thinking Like an Artist
I had an interesting childhood growing up.
My mother, a commercial artist, worked alongside her father running his architectural rendering business that focused on hand-painting photorealistic images of proposed developments. Clients would hire my grandfather and his team to conceptualize what a piece of architecture would look like after it was built. The end goal being to either present a possible future (to secure funding or other resources — like a prototype in software development) or, to build momentum around the eventual unveiling of a property.
It was a truly unique business because the work the company produced was world-renowned, yet, was operated from a tiny suburb in Northwest Ohio — a mostly rural state — here in the United States. As a child, I — along with my brother and cousins — often found ourselves running around the office building my grandfather had designed and built for the business, oblivious to the work taking place or the caliber of clients traversing the halls.
Inside of just a few square miles, my grandfather had built a small empire, encompassing the studio, his own custom-designed home, and a string of high-end neighborhood developments. As if this weren’t enough, he had an impeccable eye for detail; laughingly unmatched — he’s well aware of his talents — by his contemporaries. It was — and is, still in his seventies — a family joke that the man is notoriously fussy. Mistakes were seldom tolerated, with the bulk of his discontent being shouldered on the argument “well why wouldn’t you do it this way?”
Albeit delivered in a more gentle package, this same attitude trickled down to my mother who espoused the same values in her own work. Though she passed away in 2009, some of her early illustration work still hangs on my living room wall, constantly reminding me of the (self-imposed) legacy I need to live up to. A legacy that speaks to an unshakeable commitment to detail, quality, and having the patience and persistence to produce things that others can — and often will — not.
This past weekend, I had the chance to visit my grandfather at his home where, still to this day, he works with a small number of clients, mostly overseeing the work of digital artists (he’s since downsized his operation). Following a lengthy conversation on his porch, he excitedly took me inside to show me some of the work one of those artists produced recently. Pulling up a set of chairs to his computer, he scanned through his email to open an attachment containing a low-res rendering, a work in progress for a current client.
While the work was certainly impressive, what struck me most was his enthusiasm for the details. He zoomed into the proof, pointing out things that most others would ignore: the intricacy of the stone work on the building’s facade, the texture of the clothing on the people placed in the scene, and — my favorite — a nitpick about how the work in question was noticeably missing shadows beneath the plants draped in the planter positioned in front of the building’s entrance (something he let the artist know to fix). It was in this moment, watching the smile on his face, that it was affirmed that the man was a true artist.
While I’ve yet to live up to the work that he, my mother, and their team produced, I’ve found a similar obsession with detail in my own work (much to the frustration of those that I work with). When it comes to software, though many would consider the visual design to be where the details stop, they seldom are. The interface is just one piece of the puzzle, with arguably bigger details like interactions, copywriting, and overall composition of a product remaining as cornerstones.
Driving back home on Saturday, I had a long think about what it means to be an artist. While it’s easy to package certain affectations into a figurine that looks like an artist — an unfortunate reality to contend with these days — living a life that embodies the values of an artist is impossible to facsimile. Quite literally, you have to live it. Whatever work you find yourself producing at the moment — irrespective of scope or prestige — is the most important thing you can be doing. You must commit yourself fully, being careful to consider how your approach will dictate the outcome.
A comical anecdote my grandfather shared during our conversation was his desire and subsequent method for learning to play piano recently. Sitting and staring at the keys to learn notes wasn’t enough. In-between complaints about films that show someone playing the piano on the lower-octave keys of the instrument while the matching audio is in a higher-octave, he explained that his own practice is performed entirely in the dark. His focus being on memorizing the position of the keys and the notes they produce physically, first, allowing for — in his opinion — a more organic, less-predictable music to be produced each time he plays.
While it’s a bit trite to condense into one thing, what artistry boils down to is caring about the details. Not just feigning care, but really giving a damn. Not succumbing to the pressure of others and worrying about what they may think. Honing your process and understanding that how you get there is just as — if not more — important as getting there. Your focus is always one hundred percent on producing the best possible work, no matter the cost (both time and monetary). This is an incredibly difficult attitude to embody, one that necessitates a high level of confidence in your work; past, present, and future.
In respect to software development, this may seem difficult, if not impossible. The truth is that at any given point in time, there are maximums. You will only be so good — and able to do so much — at different points in your career. Work must ship eventually and bills have to be paid. The point isn’t to be a stubborn jerk, but to recognize that what you’re producing today is far from your best and that you can get better. That, in forcing yourself to produce your best possible work today, you inch closer to perfection in the future. All the while recognizing that while you’ll never achieve perfection, each effort you make toward achieving it means that what you do produce is always at its acme.
This is why I’m picky about who I work with. If I catch even a whiff of opportunism in someone’s actions, I immediately — perhaps to my detriment — dismiss their work. A great example of this is the reason that I work with Benjamin, the editor here at TMC. Working together elsewhere before we teamed up on TMC, it was abundantly clear that he has an ongoing love affair with detail.
Submitting my writing to him for approval, it’s not uncommon to get an email containing quibbles like “you should use an en dash here instead of an em dash.” While his personality dictates his comments always being delivered with a patient, honest apology, I love receiving his feedback because I’ll know that he looked at my — and others — work with the eye of an artist; not just someone going through the motions to get paid.
When I look at how my grandfather behaves, it’s clear that while he understands the importance of running a business to make money, his actions and the life they’ve produced suggest that his true motive is doing interesting, exceptional work. Making a point to invite only those who care as much as he does about the craft of what he’s producing, never concerning himself with external opinions. It’s taken him a lifetime to afford the ability to do this, but in that lifetime, he never wavered from his vision of what was correct.
This is, in my eyes, what thinking like an artist is all about.
