Sage Bray Varon

Do you remember line about reaching the end of the internet, as if it was finite? That’s how I feel about the knowledge of most any topic. There isn’t an end, no finite amount of knowledge you can gain on any one subject. Especially when it comes to creative endeavors. Let me try to illustrate why this is and why appreciating this fact can help you become a more accomplished creative.

Back in another lifetime, I specialized in writing training programs, primarily for restaurant and bars. At one point, a restaurant group I worked for wanted to add an advanced wine program to their training material. Well, I knew enough to sell a bottle to the casual diner, but for this program I thought I’d get a full wine education. I thought a couple of classes and a book or two would do it.

But noooo. Wine knowledge is insanely complex, nuanced, and, of all things, creative! There are layers and layers and worlds and worlds of information that go into not just making wine, but understanding the differences, as well as how food, atmosphere, and even our own background effect what we enjoy. This depth of understanding is what guides the creative decisions of winemakers who have not a handful of decisions to make but many dozens for each wine they craft. I had no idea wine was so involved. That’s when I was introduced to the phrase, “The more you know, the more you know that you know nothing.”

And that’s exactly how I felt, and still feel, about wine, even though I went on to teach wine classes for years.

You may have found this to be the case in your art form, initially having a rather simplistic idea of how to go about it. But what creative work is truly simple? Polymer clay? Well, sure, that’s colored clay and you sculpt with it. Uh, yeah, no. I had a 10-year career teaching and writing on every aspect of it and I never came close to fully mining that rabbit hole. How about writing a novel? Don’t you just jot down what’s in your head? If only! No one’s fully explained all that goes into that crazy pursuit after centuries of trying. Why do you think there are hundreds of books out there on how to write?

Pick any art form and see how many books, magazines, and new classes there are about it out there. If there was some finite amount of knowledge for that creative activity, you couldn’t have a magazine about it! And yet, I am constantly finding people who think they know everything about their medium. The problem is, when you think you know everything, then you are done growing, and creativity is about nothing if not about growing.

I can’t tell you how many times I was told by moderately accomplished crafters that they didn’t read my magazines or blogs because there wouldn’t be anything new for them there. I never argued. It would not have helped. But I did, if I was able, give them a copy of my magazine. Every once in a while, I would get a note back with a remark about being surprised at finding something that hadn’t thought about or that they had forgotten. I loved getting those notes!

Then there were the really big, well-known artists in polymer that I in no way expected to be reading my publications. But most of the time, it turned out that they did! Then I realized something… they were, in large part, great artists because they never thought they knew it all, because they were open to learning, and constantly sought new perspectives. In other words, they were constantly open to things that would help them grow.

That’s what I’m doing right now myself. I’m getting more serious about my artistic photography, partly to have more to pair it with my poetry as I do on social media each week, but also because it’s more immediate than the other things I have on the studio table. But how do photographers think about composition? What design elements do they focus on and why? How would an approach to photography differ from mixed media? Inquiring minds (mine at least) want to know. And it’s super exciting to read about well-known subjects from new perspectives!

We all want to feel that we know what we’re doing, but we don’t need to act like we know it all. If you can come to terms with the idea that you will never know everything about what you are doing creatively, you will leave yourself that room you need to grow. Constantly educating yourself helps inject you and your work with fresh inspiration and challenges, not to mention ongoing refinement and mastery of your medium. Plus, learning new things is a much more exciting place to be than at a know-it-all dead end.

So, as we get into spring and the idea of new beginnings it brings, ask yourself what you are doing to support your ongoing education and growth. Buy some new books or magazines or re-read the ones you have. Look into related mediums and see what they talk about. Or learn something completely new. You’ll probably find things in a new medium that will inform what you do in your primary art form.

No matter what you do to add to your education, it will be time well spent, and will keep you and your work growing.