Artists supporting artists, public discussions on social media.
I’m a bit long in the tooth. I am not old but I am certainly a bit of a distance from young, so I have seen the world pivot from a local network to international social media networking in my lifetime. It has opened new avenues of information exchange and introduced me to a broader field of opinion about the industry. What am I talking about? The concept of exchanging ideas and information sharing with others as creatives. One of the facebook groups I follow recently opened a discussion about whether someone was out of bounds to ask about a technique or if an artist was wrong for telling the questioner that they wouldn’t share.
I believe we have a right to make decisions about our techniques and not be judged for it. If you have done the heavy lifting on something new and don’t want to share, you have the right to keep it to yourself. I feel no resentment towards you, ever. Don’t be surprised if I go out and either work it out for myself or find it out from another source however. If I get the information elsewhere, you don’t get to trademark it later, sorry; that is the way it works. Now here is where I differ from the ones who don’t want to share, I will.
No matter what I teach you, you will never do it the same way I do. It is a fact. Unless you are trying to forge my work (and why would you, it wouldn’t get you anything at this point in my career), everything I teach you, you will end up doing differently. You process information differently, choose different materials, like different colors, paint different subjects, we are not the same. You might work harder and paint more often, I might go in a completely different direction than where I was when I showed you my technique. A working artist is never stagnant, and we are always growing.
The amazing thing I discovered in the group I was following last week was that most of the people posting, felt the same. Some wanted to get compensation for the education and I can understand that, but only a few said that they would keep it to themselves. I can appreciate that it might be the way the world was sitting at that very hour of the day, on that day of the week, however; it still cheered me to see that so many felt it was a good thing to share and even considered it important.
Many years ago, I read an article about a fiber harvesting technique done from the bottom of the ocean and how the knowledge was only taught to specific people in their culture. The problem was, their culture was dying out and the last 2 people hadn’t found anyone who fit the traditional dynamic to be taught. Now, I am not equating mixing cold wax with acrylic and pastel to the same level; well, maybe I am. You never know when something that was common knowledge becomes lost to history. You are not responsible for keeping any one technique alive as an artist, you are not a historian. Consider this, you might have discovered something that was lost to time. Perhaps you should make some notes and let someone you trust know where they are. If you are worried about making competition for yourself right now….. Maybe one day, you won’t be doing that special thing anymore and want to remember how to do it so you can share it.
Ultimately, while the favorable feelings toward free exchange of ideas was heartening; I think it is important to respect someone’s right to protect their own discovery. To this day, I still respect that artist’s right to not share her technique. I will close with this, it is a free country and you have the right to make the choices that work for you. Keep being creative!