July 1, 2009
The Internet and Its Discontents
Benjamin Kunkel writes in n+1 that "chief characteristic [of the Internet] appears to be a lack of mental discipline," a theme which seems to be growing in currency with the advent of social networking. He quotes disgraced New Republic blogger Lee Siegel extensively, which is unfortunate, as Nick Carr has written much more insightfully on the same topics. Still, the piece is worth your time (and attention.) This bit is a gem:I have noticed that it's of no great use telling myself, when I go online, that I should muster my willpower against the sirens of amusement, distraction, and curiosity.1 I do better at not spending too much time at my computer if I remind myself how comparatively shallow and irregular my enjoyment of the internet is. The truth is that we are often bored to death by what we find online—but this is boredom on the installment plan, one click a time, and therefore imperceptible. And if it is worth noticing your boredom—not for the sake of your prose style or your attention span, but simply for the sake of your enjoyment of life—it is for the same reason worth recognizing the general sensuous poverty of online experience.
Tangentially, I realize that n+1 considers itself to be something of the anti-McSweeney's, but must its web site be so aggressive in its poor design?
June 29, 2009
Art Class as Soulcraft, part 2
Ten Thousand Hours
In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, he argues that it requires 10,000 hours of practice to attain mastery in a given field. This seems about right to me. He also argues that there are no "naturals"—that is, geniuses that emerge sui generis, supernaturally gifted individuals who emerge as fully formed masters without apparent effort or hard work on their part. Conversely, he argues that there are similarly no "grinds" that is persons of little talent who through hard work alone, manage to attain the same mastery. He uses the analogy of basketball: there seems to be a baseline eight for success in the NBA (6'6".) Shorter than that and success is extremely unlikely, but above that baseline differences in height become less important than differences in practice, and raw talent.
June 24, 2009
Shop Class as Soulcraft, part I
The Separation of Thinking from Doing
I recently read Matthew Crawford's excellent Shop Class as Soulcraft,¹ an impassioned defense of the value of manual work and the particular rewards of work that one is personally invested in. Although his focus is on the trades, his overall inquiry into the value of various kinds of work has a lot of relevance for the artist as well. He investigates the alienation of the "knowledge worker" from the results of their labor and argues that the greater the autonomy of the worker, the more intellectually stimulating the work is. He also argues that working with one's hands provides a mental stimulation, a way of literally "getting in touch with the world" that layers of management and an over-reliance on process have removed from the office worker. This concept of literally thinking better by working with one's hands has a particular resonance for an artist working in traditional materials.
Crawford traces "the separation of thinking from doing" to the beginning of the 20th century and the movement to systematically observe and study work. Originally called "Scientific Management", the stated goal was that "all possible brain work should be removed from the shop and centered in the planning or laying-out department." The most influentual proponent of scrientific management is Frederick Winslow Taylor, who writes: "It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone."² The principle of scientific management finds its first triumph in the assembly line. Ford discovered that the assembly line "provoked a natural revulsion" when it was first introduced: craftsmen simple walked off the job. He found it was necessary to hire 963 men just to retain 100 of them. He found a solution by doubling wages. Paradoxically, this enabled Ford to triple its output because the workers were now so anxious to keep their jobs: "anxious workers were more productive." In other words, although the workers still didn't like it, the prospect of getting twice what any other carriage maker was paying was too much to pass up. Thus, keeping workers in a state of anxiety increased efficiency. Good for Ford, and good for the workers' wallet, but not so great for their state of mind.
He then draws a line to a similar degradation of white-collar work in the present day. The intention is still to transfer knowledge, skill, and decision making from employee to employer. He makes an excellent observation when he notes that the modern corporation's enthusiasm for process has it's roots in the same desire to separate thinking from doing and to create efficiencies by taking unpredictable individual decision-making out of the equation and making sure that everyone's job is very specifically delineated. Just as in the assembly line, each knowledge worker has his or her assigned role and one is expected not to deviate from that by too much.
The White-Collar Assembly Line
This creates much of the cognitive dissonance familiar to anyone who has worked in an office setting. Companies want employees productive and they want processes streamlined and set down in charts. But they also want their employees to show a certain amount of individual initiative. These motives are at odds with one another and create many of the philosophical absurdities that characterize office culture. Unfortunately, Crawford doesn't make this connection, as he veers off instead at the shibboleth of multiculturalism (perhaps a vestige of his days at the think tank.) The reason that companies place so much value on teamwork is not because they have been infiltrated by liberals, but because in the office, the assembly line is made of people. Unlike Ford's assembly line where the conveyor belt did the work of moving the project along, in the office any significant project is passed from one person to the next, and it's important that people are able to communicate and get along to insure that the hand-off goes smoothly. In a human conveyer belt, if the workers are at odds with one another, the work goes more slowly; the conveyor belt breaks down and the knowledge worker assembly line becomes unproductive. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with productivity.
Self Esteem? Kind of Irrelevant, Actually
He gets it right when he writes on page 149 that "workers must...exhibit a high level of 'buy-in' to 'the mission'" and that this is important to the corporation's goals for the reasons of productivity stated above. But he fails to draw that conclusion, instead going off on a tangent about the evils of self-esteem. Although he draws on some real-life examples of new-agey team-building coaches and seminars, he doesn't realize that such activities occupy a miniscule amount of the knowledge worker's time: perhaps 3 weeks in a decade? (I would actually say less, but I am being charitable. Perhaps it depends on the company.) The corporation does not promote team-building and self-esteem out of some sense of squishy altruism. They do it because they don't want their workers to slow productivity with disagreements.
Mastery is a By-product of Creativity Cultivated through Long Practice
He writes "creativity is a by-product of mastery of the sort that is cultivated through long practice." I happen to think that he has it slightly backward: I would say that mastery is a by-product of creativity cultivated through long practice. But it is really a disagreement over semantics, we are essentially in agreement that mastery requires a lot of hard work and master craftsmen and artists do not spring fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. But why do you start? Because you have to. Because you are compelled. So it begins, not ends, with creativity. But this is coming from a sketcher and painter of pictures—a person whose work is by its very nature useless (although human beings seem to need art for unknown reasons...eh, perhaps there is some use after all.) We are arriving at the same place by different directions: for the master, both creativity and mastery are needful. Perhaps the craftsman must master his craft before he can become creative, whereas the artist begins with the creative impulse and masters his materials to enable that impulse to manifest itself in the way he desires.
1. The book is based on an essay published in The New Atlantis in 2006. The essay gives a good overview of the book's thesis and is well worth the read.
2. Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1911.
May 31, 2009
In Which I Offer Advice about Art
With much sadness, I’ve recently watched some of my most beloved and respected friends’ blogs degrade into a depressing slurry of pimping, random affiliate linking, paid (or pseudo-paid) placement, idiotic traffic boosters, and wholesale ego boosting...
Over the years, “productivity blogs” of unbelievably varying quality shot up like hothouse kudzu — many baldly hoping to capitalize on the low-cost, high-return business of theoretically useful self-help publishing — mostly without affecting even the vaguest patina of wanting to help another human being solve a real-world problem. Some of these folks continue to make a living (and draw a considerable crowd) by producing material that I personally find transparently dumb and useless.
Perhaps you've noticed. In the past couple of years, there have been all these life coaches and productivity coaches springing up all over the Internet. They promise to help you become self-sufficient and quit your soul-sucking job. They write extremely persuasively about the value of entrepreneurship and the wonderful opportunities which await you using multiple income streams, e-books, advertising, affiliate marketing, and the wonderful self-affirmation that will come when you actualize your potential. Yes, they really want to help other people become the best that they can be. It is their mission in life.
Once you hand over the money.
In many cases, a lot of money. And that's fine for them I suppose but it's not fine for me. When I read these sites, I thought, can I do this? Put a bunch of affiliate ads all over my site devoted to my art and write some dubious e-books about how you too can make money with your art because look I did it? Where's the altruism in that? At that point, I'm no longer an artist helping out other artists, but a "life coach" myself, selling out my service to those who can afford it and to those who can't—generally the ones who need it the most—tough luck. Read The Creative Habit and have a nice life.¹
I will give you this advice for free
Just e-mail me. Ask me whatever you like and I'll answer as best I can.
What am I qualified to talk about?
- Portfolio review
- Web site review
- Advice about making/keeping daily routines
- What to do if you don't have time for art
- Advice about materials
- Even GTD, if that's how you roll.
Any of that stuff I can help you out with. I am deadly fucking serious about this.
Consider it a Mitzvah²
Because although I had many good teachers throughout the years, especially in high school and again after college when I studied in Florence, I never had a mentor as a professional. I pretty much had to figure it out on my own. And although there are merits in that, I made a lot of rookie mistakes that I might have avoided with the advice of someone with a little bit more experience. Which is what I'm offering here.
If you are serious about a career in art
What are you waiting for? Drop me a line.
1. You really should read The Creative Habit, though.
2. Which I hope to God I am using this word correctly.
May 18, 2009
The Miserable Process of Getting from 25 to 35
In 1937, researchers at Harvard began a remarkable psychological study of Harvard sophomores that has continued up to the present day. Unlike most other clinical studies which focus on illnesses, the goal of the Grant Study was to examine health and well-being. The Atlantic has published a fascinating article—What Makes Us Happy?—about the Study and Doctor George Vaillant, who has been its director for the past 42 years. The depth of it is just staggering.
One quote in particular jumped out at me. In the video interview accompanying the article, Dr. Vaillant says:
Its alright that young people can do the things that they can do. I mean the youth that the old envy is accompanied by the miserable process of getting from 25 to 35 where you've got all this health and all this youth and you're scared stiff that when it's all said and done you're not going to amount to a hill of beans. And if you just wait virtually all of them by the time they were 45 or 50 amounted to something. And knowing that is such a relief. You just don't know it at 30.
I must admit I hadn't really thought of it this way before. Being in the (upper end) of that age group myself, I really hadn't considered that the anxieties of the past decade are, in fact, typical for people our age. "And knowing that is such a relief. You just don't know it at 30." Yes it is, and no I didn't. But I feel a bit better about it now.
May 17, 2009
Come conviene variare co' tempi volendo sempre avere buona fortuna.
Another downloadable Machiavelli poster, this time in the original Italian.
ht:Rob
Downloadable Machiavelli Posters
I've created a few letter-sized Machiavelli posters that you can download and print out. Hang them up and be inspired by Niccolò's wisdom or just flaunt your erudition—it's up to you. Each has a different quote from Machiavelli and looks like this:
April 27, 2009
The Old Watertown Branch Line, part 2
Another Flickr set, continuing my exploration of the Watertown Branch Line, this time going from the Arlington Street crossing towards Watertown Square (Last time I went in the Cambridge direction.) This part of the track is more overgrown than the stretch going in the other direction. As you can see, I brought an assistant this time. We went as far as where the tracks pass in back of the Watertown Mall but were stopped by a large patch of poison ivy.
April 19, 2009
The Old Watertown Branch Line
I took a walk today along the abandoned Watertown Branch Line of the Fitchburg Railroad Company and posted some photos to Flickr. I hope you'll take a look. It was really an enlightening experience, because I was unaware how the railroad had affected my town in the previous two centuries. It's the reason, for example, that Watertown has two industrial zones: one along Arsenal St. looping north toward Cambridge along Arlington St., and the other in West Watertown along Pleasant St. The railroad followed exactly this path, taking a short detour around Watertown Square. The rest of the town is residential and commercial. Only where the factories built themselves around the RR do we get industrial areas.
The missing railroad is also the reason for the bridge on Patten St., which never made any sense to me until I traced the route of the brach line which passed right under it. There's not much left of the line beyond Watertown Square, I took today's pictures in East Watertown, going from where the line crosses Arlington St in front of Matilda's to where it passes under Mt. Auburn St. over by Star Market.
I plan to make another excursion in the near future, this time going from Arlington St. toward Watertown Square; there's still some track left between there and School Street.
April 18, 2009
Wired Apple cover from 1997
Found this beauty when I was cleaning out my e-mail. Remember when Apple was "beleaguered"? Seems like a long time ago. Still a fantastic cover, the visual metaphor is great and it's handled perfectly.