Can-Do Attitude in a Can’t-Do World
Matt Archambault recently introduced me to illustrator Alphonse Mucha (1860-1930). Mucha was an amazing artist that I’m very surprised to have never heard of before. I recognized his influence, though, in comics today — most notably in the work of Adam Hughes.
Apparently Mucha’s talent didn’t completely surface early in his life. Here is a tidbit I found on the Mucha Foundation website:
-
1878
Mucha applies to the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. His application is turned down with the recommendation: “Find yourself another profession where you’ll be more useful.”
One of my favorite artists, Andrew Loomis, had a similar experience. In Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth, Loomis writes:
-
May I confess that two weeks after entering art school, I was advised to go back home? That experience has made me much more tolerant of an inauspicious beginning than I might otherwise have been, and it has given me additional incentive in teaching.
If academies and universities are such poor judges of potential, why don’t we just assume potential exists in everyone? Instead of looking for evidence of talent, we would do well to look for a willingness to make an extreme effort.
Loomis goes on to write:
-
I not only assume that my reader is interested in drawing but that he wishes from his toes up to become an efficient and self-supporting craftsman. I assume that the desire to express yourself with pen and pencil is not only urgent but almost undeniable, and that you feel you must do something about it. I feel that talent means little unless coupled with an insatiable desire to give an excellent personal demonstration of ability. I feel also that talent must be in company with a capacity for unlimited effort, which provides the power that eventually hurdles the difficulties that would frustrate lukewarm enthusiasm.