24 — Make Contact

My favorite definition of art is Rollo May’s: "art is the powerful and alive encounter between the artist and her world.” We discuss his 1975 book The Courage to Create in the SYLLABUS Series here.

The attached clip is from the TV series The Bear, where an apprentice is learning from a seasoned master. The experienced chef says:

“I think at a certain stage it becomes less about skill and it’s more about being open. To the world, to yourself, to other people.”

Comparative to arts like cooking, graphic design, painting or sculpture, photography is relatively easy to master the fundamentals. John Dolan said in his Visiting Artist Talk: “That’s the essential challenge. You have the skillset. What are you going to say with it?”

It’s popular to talk about creative commitment in terms of output: what we’ll make and what goals we’ll achieve. What is your devotion level to input? Every quarter I make a creative syllabus for myself. What books do I want to read? Exhibitions? Workshops? Hikes? Human experiences?

Taking Making Contact seriously yields better results for the creative arts than “ getting consistent” or “disciplined” about what we’ll do. Who do you want meet? What do you want to experience?

“You can spend al the time in the world in here. But if you don’t spend enough time out there?”

Make contact.