And Other Subversive Advice for Doing Great Things
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it can also the best way to get good at something.
When I was in art school — my first oil painting class — we had a project in which we were tasked to reproduce a masterwork. I chose to copy James Ensor’s Masks Confronting Death. I spent hours upon hours doing it, and though I hated and feared painting for years before that, spending time copying a great work melted all of that fear and hatred away.
This is a common practice in art education — hone your technique by imitating the greats. It works because it takes your mind out of the taxing and turbulent creative ideation zone and solidifies your mechanics. More than that, it works because when you’re done, you realize hey, I can make something great; I have the skill.
Once you have that confidence, you can go on to the fun stuff: ideation. Because whatever idea you come up with, you now know that you have the mechanics to give it life. This holds no matter what your chosen mode of expression — writing, design, sculpture, landscape architecture, you name it.
Begin with Idolatry, End With iconoclasm
Almost all of us begin our creative journey with a certain kind of idolatry. We have heroes who we emulate and imitate — to varying extents. We hold them in high regard, and in doing so, we end up inadvertently holding ourselves in low regard. We tell ourselves — often unknowingly — that we can’t do what those greats do.
So this practice of imitation can help us work through that idolatry. You sit down and make something great that has already been made. You solidify your mechanics. You prove yourself to yourself. You literally answer — for yourself — the question of how your idol did that great thing.
With that out of the way, you can now walk among the giants of your field with the confidence of essentially being one of them. You can look at the work of the greats, and rather than asking how they did it, you can ask:
How would YOU have done it? How will YOU do your own thing?
Now you’ve moved on to the stage of iconoclasm — taking apart the greats. Killing your idols.
There is a favorite quote of mine about this subject from Zen mythology, attributed to master Linji:
If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; if you meet the patriarchs, kill the patriarchs; if you meet an Arhat [enlightened one], kill the Arhat; if you meet your parents, kill your parents… in this way, you attain liberation.
Obviously, this quote is hyperbolic, but the point is meant to be strong. There is no room for idols in creative work. Sure, proper reverence of great works and their creators is admirable — but only for a time.
To paraphrase from a wonderful speech by John Waters, the true job of a creator is to wreck what came before. That means there is no room for looking on slack-jawed at great work, and worshiping those who did it. We can only waste so much time on that kind of idolatry. We need to quickly move on to the iconoclasm. We need kill the buddhas, kill the patriarchs. That is our real work to be done.
Technique, Schmechnique
If you’re not a master of texture like Chuck Close, or don’t have the finger agility of Yo Yo Ma, fine. Find a different approach — how you’d play different notes, make different brushstrokes, write different stories. Hell, you may not even use a brush at all. Yes, strong technique is a part of making great things, yes, but technique is not a narrow, well-defined thing.It begs to be questioned, overhauled, contorted — especially when it stands in the way of expressing something truly great.
Each artist has their own technique, but it’s only a means to an end. Thomas Kinkade was a great technician. Proofread Bot is a great technician. But neither have sparked a revolutionary fire in humanity with their firm grasp of technique. Remember: Jimi Hendrix couldn’t even read music. Technique as we knew it was a hurdle over which he chose to jump, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest in honing your technique, but it does mean you shouldn’t let being unskilled deter you from letting it rip.
In summation: Find your idols, briefly admire them, and kill them. Kill them beautifully and passionately, technique be damned.