Understanding Art and the Artist in You!

You mention art, you mention Picasso! Among the many tales sparkling around his creative genius, here’s one… the Spanish genius was walking through a market one day and met a woman who recognized this talented man. Now, the woman walked up to him, handed him a sheet of paper and asked him to draw something for her. Pablo obliged. He quickly drew a small yet beautiful piece on the paper and said, “That will be one million dollars.” The woman was shocked to hear the amount and argued that the drawing took only 30 seconds so the money was in no way just. Picasso smirked and quoted, “it took me 30 years to draw that masterpiece in 30 seconds.”

So what does that tell us about talent?! The gift one receives with birth can only do so much without hard work’s support. These things go hand-in-hand. It takes time to find that one particular field where you can put in all your efforts, time to achieve what people like Picasso, Satyajit Ray, da Vinci, Tarantino have. Now, take a moment to look at the following graph;

The graph shows the average age of Nobel prize winners and/or great inventors at the time of their inventions.

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It clearly represents the peak in careers coming-in in late thirties for a majority of these people. This is, by general observation, the time around which most of them have completed almost 10–12 years in their respective field, honing their respective skills.

So, some of the steps to find ‘your’ genius:

• Ability to not falter in trying phases: in this new learning curve, while tryna hone a skill, there’ll be times you may expect a good result too soon. You have to remember to take one step at a time, one learning at a step. Remember Lincoln lost 4elections before his first win.. Baby steps!
• Creating consistently: no one knows which time is the ‘golden hour’ keep the brush in your hand, keep working; you don’t know when ‘that’ idea will strike you.. Certainly not while you are sitting crestfallen!
• Self compassion over self judgement: don’t be too harsh, too soon on yourself. Comparing yourselves with the greats will bring in disappointments, at time. You need to remember that you know nothing about the work’s background… the time it took the setting, the mood, just keep reassuring yourself. Be your friend!
• Always finish and try sharing your work: the satisfaction of a completed work is immeasurable, it may not resemble something you had hoped for, but it will give you a start, every time. Also, look for feedback, go public with your work… being shy doesn’t help!