A Habitual Problem: Pattern Recognition and Equine Realism

Introduction

Curiously, some of our evolutionary traits that make us homo sapien also sabotage our potential in art, particularly in equine realism. This means that besides skill-building and developing our knowledge base, we also have hardwired obstacles to tackle. How interesting that the trickiest challenges aren't about training or resources, but what originates inside our own heads!

Now as we’ve discussed some time ago, the most powerful hardwired trait is our perception, that filter that interprets reality. As important as it is though, our perception is subjective, not objective. Indeed, everyone perceives reality differently and, since it's the interface between ourselves and the world, it colors everything we think, feel, reason, and assume with our own unique take on things. And because it's an individually–customized, conflict of interest feedback loop, it intrinsically does so without us ever realizing it. We simply believe our interpretations and sensibilities to be self–evident and absolute. But that's not necessarily true! We may have it very wrong! But only by understanding our perception's foibles can we begin to circumvent this unhelpful influence.

And a big part of our perception’s superpowers is something called the Pattern Recognition Response (PRR). This is a particularly sneaky facet of our perception which literally helps to filter everything incoming and outgoing, and being so all-encompassing, will influence everything we absorb and translate into our clay or pigment. This means that it can cause skews right under our radar, contributing to our blindspots, plateaus, biases, and tastes, even our artistic style. As such, the believability of our work depends a lot on our ability to manipulate our PRR in order to tease out evermore truthful patterns. So let’s talk about it!…

 

The Pattern Recognition Response

The human brain is supremely evolved to find and establish patterns. When we get right down to it, pattern recognition is what we do best. Some would even argue that all human behavior and brain processing can be explained by this simple mechanism alone. 

Indeed, pattern recognition is such a part of what we are that it insinuates itself into everything we do. Language is a learned pattern of communication, for example. Identifying objects, family and friends requires pattern recognition as well. This trait even compels us to fancifully see things in random objects (like bunnies in clouds), and influences simple pleasures like music. What's music but a series of formalized, pleasing sound patterns? No wonder our brain finds it so appealing!

But even our habits come down to patterns—patterns of behavior and assumptions. How we reason and rationalize come down to patterned behavior, too, those shaped by triggers unique to our individual nature and nurture. Even the consumer choices we make come down to pattern processing, from identifying a familiar brand to researching which product to buy. Really, what are product reviews but a pattern of performance?

In the big picture, our cultures and societal functioning all come down to formalized patterns as well. What's a tradition? Merely an institutionalized pattern of collective behavior. In the even bigger picture, physics and the function of the Universe are dictated by patterns, those established by natural forces. 

Life is really like one big outrageously complicated patterned tapestry. How clever of our brains to have keyed on this fundamental constant of life! What's especially curious about all this is that our grey cells are so hell–bent on pattern recognition, that they’ll make forced associations to establish a pattern no matter how meager the correlation. Heck, our brain will even fabricate them where none exist, without us ever realizing it. This is how we create superstitions, for instance, or the belief in a "lucky streak" in gambling, or pseudo-science. It’s also where we get our conspiracy theories and logic fallacies.

What does this mean? That our brain demands a pattern to make sense of any given situation. So we not only have to contend with a subjective interpretation of reality then, we also have to deal with our brain’s insistence on patterns, even made up ones. Between the two of them then lies ample opportunity to skew our interpretations right off the map. Is it any wonder why beginners have such a hard time learning this art form? Is it any wonder why making progress at any point can be such a challenge?

So what does pattern recognition have to do with realistic equine sculpture? A whole heckuva lot! On one hand, success depends in part on our ability to recognize and apply accurate biological patterns. But taking our work to the next level depends entirely on our ability to manipulate this process. Said another way, it's not enough to recognize the biological patterns, we must also recognize how and when to tweak them, and why.

What for? Well, what are anatomy and biomechanics? They're just life’s biological patterns, aren’t they? They're so consistent, in fact, that paleontologists use them to deduce the niche and physical capabilities of long–extinct animals. Just take a look at Linnaean taxonomy. There's a system of categorization based entirely on biological patterns.

Coming back to equine realism then, anatomy charts and descriptions are merely codified expressions of the biological pattern for Equus, the blueprint pattern, with each equine species having its own unique variation. In this context, age and gender differences are just modified biological patterns derived from the master pattern. More still, breed, conformation and type are merely a series of institutionalized patterns layered onto the Equus pattern. And individual variation is simply another layer of modification of the equine pattern.

Even what we apply to our clay or paint is based on pattern recognition. For example, how we design a sculpture, from the flick of an ear to the orientation of bones and musculature, is guided by those patterns we perceive in life. What’s more, our methods, artistic style, and the materials we use are all based on patterns, a force of habit. Indeed, what’s a habit but a behavioral pattern? As for life study and workshops then, what we’re really doing is learning to refine preexisting patterns or learn new patterns entirely. Learning to sculpt or paint better is simply an incidental by-product.

This is why we learn most when we "get out of our brain's way," allowing it to absorb, absorb, absorb new patterns without preconceived notions. The moment we stick prejudgment into a workshop setting, for instance, we cram a monkey wrench into the whole experience. Indeed, when we're doing it right, doesn't our brain spin for hours after the class? This is because our grey cells not only adore discovering new patterns, they go bananas over processing them even more. They'll do it for hours. Days. Months even. While we're asleep! They'll even tuck some away for future revelations, when they can go bananas all over again—that’s our subroutines working.

All this in mind, accurate equine realism simply entails recognizing the necessary patterns, right? That once we establish a diligent habit that recreates these authentic patterns, we'll automatically create more realistic work by default, yes? If it's pretty much like assembling IKEA furniture out of a box...hey, we got it made!

Well, not really.

The Big Problem with Pattern Recognition

Yes, anatomical patterns are recipe–like, within the grasp of anyone determined enough to learn them. And, yes, they're teachable, able to be broken down into bite–size pieces. But as any experienced sculptor knows—only to a point. And this point pops up far quicker than we may realize. 

That's the important bit. This point of no return sneaks past all of us when we aren't looking, when the pattern ceases to be a guide and becomes a habit, a formula, even a contrivance. From this moment on, we're sculpting-by-numbers or painting-by-numbers rather than from life, with the formula becoming the only interpretation that looks right to us. Quite literally, our brain becomes so infatuated with that pattern, it can't See anything else. This is exactly where our artistic style is developed but also where our blindspots, plateaus, and biases reside. Clearly then, learning to manipulate our PRR is a key for empowered progress by continually ferreting out these skews. Learn to tweak it at will then, and we can take our work to the next level at any time. Because what’s progress but dumping old obsolete patterns for newer more accurate ones?

 

Even so, all this is an unavoidable phenomenon because it's part of learning the correct pattern in the first place. We gotta learn the correct patterns, the rules, as best we can before we can learn how to tweak them. This is why we’ll hear in art circles that we have to learn how to paint or sculpt “tight” before we can “loosen” well. We have to know the rules to know how to tork them, don't we? Being so, we only get into trouble if we stop in the “tight” phase, or the formulaic approach rather than loosening to better duplicate organic reality. For instance, our sculptures can become more like anatomical paper dolls, lacking all the happenstance, physics, and diversity Nature presents us moment by moment with the living body.

 

Not that a sculpt-by-numbers or paint-by-numbers approach doesn't work—it certainly can result in beautiful pieces! But we also can’t ignore that it results in an inevitable homogenous body of work where it appears the same ruleset was used to carve in the formula regardless of the circumstances depicted. For instance, we cannot forget that those anatomy charts we depend on so much aren’t infallible nor are they gospel. They have critical flaws we must be aware of if they’re going to guide us in the best way, without holding us back or steering us in the wrong direction.

And that’s just it — if we allow our PRR to get the better of us, it’s going to start dictating a skewed reality, enforcing the same formula across the board. Our PRR also tends to double down to exaggerate its preferred patterns to a point well beyond what we find in life. This is exactly how some pieces can become so caricatured or stylized, they cease to be realistic. This is fine if that’s our goal, but if our aim is otherwise, we have some work to do.

Is Pattern Recognition Cut and Dry? 

All that said, leaning into a pattern isn't a bad thing per se. Indeed, connecting the anatomical dots, plotting the pattern for the bones, joints, musculature and whatnot, is a sound strategy for creating and articulating an armature, for instance. Really, what better way to create something recognizable as a horse, mule, or onager from the onset? This is precisely why the more faithfully we connect the various dots throughout the process, the more technically accurate our sculptures become. The same can be said for paintwork, too. For example, each color has its own dappling pattern, some of which can change through the seasons to boot, and we need to ping these patterns if we hope to have our paintjobs ring true. Likewise, each color has its own characteristic hue, its own pattern of color use, which we need to zero in on for our coat colors to read accurately. So a pattern certainly makes for a very handy guide.

Even so, taking our work to the next level requires we go beyond this point. This is because the dots we're connecting belong to an organic, living creature who doesn’t care one iota about our preferred patterns. Sure, we may find our patterns comfortable, familiar, safe, attractive, even successful, but real life just doesn't care about any of that. So should we? And there it is. If our formula works and people like it, and, more importantly, if we like it, what's the point of breaking from a successful pattern? This is the pivotal question we come to if we're practicing our art with sincerity.  

The answer is a personal decision and one we come to in our own time. But before we make it, we should know a couple of things. First, our answer, "forever will it dominate your destiny," as Yoda would say. And there are trade-offs for the safety and comfort of our habitual patterns. For one, artistic plateaus await us and, for another, we risk entrenching into our blindspots, even those that compound. We may also bang out predictable work that may not be as faithful to life if we could See otherwise.

And second, whatever satisfaction we derive from our formula, we should recognize that there's a difference between technical accuracy and living accuracy. To understand why, we're asked to identify when our point of no return occurred, determine why it occurred, how we want to reorient our direction, and then consciously lift our sensibilities out of the habitual formulas that got us there. As we advance then, we essentially become more courageous. Since each individual animal and discreet moment is—by definition—a unique variation of the pattern, we realize our sculptures and paintjobs can be as well, and so it's okay to release our grip on our safety blankets. So if we want to strive for our true potential, we're obliged to let go of those things that feel safe, reliable, and tested and stretch further into the unknown with riskier choices. 

The reason for this is that any pattern we cannot perceive is actually a bigger influence in our work that those we can, which is why we'll make technical mistakes totally unawares. That’s to say we simply don't See our habitual patterns as flawed — that’s what makes them habitual. But the truth is we can only begin to trust any patterns we are recognizing when we learn to increasingly tease out our biases, plateaus, and blindspots to make proactive and intentional judgment calls about them. 

But this isn’t easy. It’s actually a kinda Catch-22 because we’re operating within a conflict of interest loop of our perception and PRR. Honestly then, it's really our core struggle in equine realism. To grasp just how tricky it is then, we first have to understand seven inherent obstacles with our PRR:

1. Our brain will automatically and immediately begin to pattern recognize the moment it processes something.
2. We cannot prevent our brain from doing so, or from acting on those patterns. It's a hardwired response, just like breathing or balance control. This means we have to intervene the moment it starts.
3. Our brain's ability to pattern recognize is determined by the acuity of our perception.
4. Our brain will convince us that the patterns it does recognize are absolutely reliable and immutable.
5. We can never duplicate life's patterns in absolute faithfulness due to the very nature of creating art since we are fallible human beings and not Nature. However, our brain will relentlessly attempt to convince us otherwise.
6. Nature is as much about chaos as it is about order, and so relying too heavily on orderly, static patterns will invariably cause our work to fall short as an expression of organic life.
7. Our PPR is highly vulnerable to social pressure and conditioning, meaning that our ability to pattern recognize can be influenced, even manipulated by external pressures. 

Add all that up and it's evident how trouble awaits us when we assume realism is just a matter of duplicating the patterns we see. Our course of action for real progress then becomes circumventing these obstacles, so let's chat about them a bit more.

Starting with #1, our brain is processing patterns all the time, even while we're sleeping. It's so eager to do this, it's even anticipating them. Ever anxious for lunch hour? There ya go. It's so positively pattern–happy, that if it cannot find patterns, it will contrive them just to make itself happier. In some ways, this is what art actually is, merely the brain entertaining itself with self–generated patterns it finds pleasing.

Now if a pattern appears obvious, or repeats with enough predictability, our brain is so thrilled, it cements that pattern into a kind of truth, a rule. Indeed, our brain lives for this—every little grey cell anxious for this very moment. We call it "learning." For us this means the moment we practice our craft—when we even think about it—our brain promptly gets to work, busily directing our hands according to those patterns it recognizes as rules. It wants to always apply what it has learned. The point to understand here is that, as artists, some of these rules may be inconsistent with reality. Thanks to any deficiencies in our perception, our ability to recognize patterns is distorted in kind. We'll get to that in #3. 

In addition to that, it also means our brain is likely to pounce on anything that appears consistent and translate it as fact. This isn't always the case in life, however, especially when it comes to the “living moment” or aspects of the equine influenced to human action. For instance, the way fads influence riding styles demonstrates how consistency doesn't always equate to correct. Rollkur is an example. So after our brain settles down from its enthusiastic assumption, we must challenge it further by asking, "why?" It's in the "why" where we must make a value judgment, and so it’s a critical first response. Indeed, it's rarely a good idea to accept a pattern at face value, especially in this art form and with a subject that exists within a sketchy social contract.

Nonetheless, the upside is that learning makes our brain immensely happy and keeps it primed for more. Truly, the more it learns, the better learner it becomes. So give it new patterns to chew on! You'll make your brain super happy and you'll find new satisfaction in the studio, and that spells one thing—better work. 

Now we come to #2. We should understand that pattern recognition is an instinctive response. It's automatic and instantaneous. We cannot will our brain to stop any more than will our body to stop metabolizing. For example, when an angry dog lunges at us, what's our first response? Yes—to recoil back. Our brain's ability to pattern recognize and act is so hardwired, we literally cannot think fast enough to stop it from happening. Consequently, our only recourse is to manage it after the fact while not stoking its fires at the same time. So how do we do this? Well, here are some tactics we can apply to do just that…

• Learn how to sculpt or paint without thinking about patterns. Come to each life study moment and each piece with as few expectations and assumptions as possible. When we envision a horse, for instance, try to avoid a fixation on anatomical organization. Rather, try to abstract the subject into very simple lines, shapes, and curves that capture the essence of the subject in the moment rather than the anatomy. Above all, stop thinking about anatomy charts. While smart to do when training our perception as beginners, weaning ourselves from them as we advance helps to retrain our perception to better zero in on those fleeting moments of change. When we stop working so hard to contrive the subject, when we stop organizing them into familiar patterns, to instead just look at what's there without prejudgment, we begin to better perceive how the master pattern changes in each fleeting moment. We better see how it's an untidy, organic, living entity, not something formulaic and neat, like a static illustration. Because here’s the thing: Once we fully grasp the pattern, it’s time to work beyond it and we do that by using the chart as a guide rather than as confining dogma.
• Use artistic tricks to snap our brain away from its preferred, most comfortable patterns. Our brain latches onto its favorite patterns because they're safe and familiar, not necessarily because they're correct. And yes, these patterns may have been successful thus far, so why not repeat them? But the problem is this makes our brain complacent, over–confident and worse, tending to entrench in its blindspots. Honestly, our creative sensibilities need a good shakedown every so often. So consider sculpting upside down, using anatomy charts and references upside down as well. We can use a hand mirror to "reverse" our sculpture during the process, too, to jar our brain away from its familiar view. We can take a photo of our piece and, along with our references, reverse the colors in Photoshop to see everything in a whole new way. We may even pick up on patterns previously unrecognized! And it can be as simple as this pledge: "I shall not repeat myself—I will find new ways to express anatomy, color, or technique on this piece that I haven't explored before, no matter how odd or challenging it appears to me.” Granted though, it'll take a bit of mental work as our brain is truly infatuated with its safe patterns, like a rattie grasping onto a yogie treat, but work on it with intent and it’s doable.
• Actively find ways to break any pattern we employ. Because our brain regards familiar patterns as safe and absolute, it'll unconsciously initiate them if we aren't consciously working to countermand them. For instance, the second we start blocking in the familiar muscle groups, we should stop and question ourselves. Why are we doing things the same way? How can we do it differently? What are my references really telling me that’s different from what I assume? Because here’s the deal: We should be exploring how to tweak these patterns with equal enthusiasm as we have in getting them right. Why? Well, more often than not, how the pattern becomes different is more pivotal than how it remains the same. So the moment we start thinking, "Yes, that's what it should look like," is the moment we need to stop and reevaluate why. The thing is though, this determination is based entirely on our recognized patterns. In short, "what looks right" is a judgment born largely of habit. Are we sure our perception is allowing us to See the patterns accurately? Are we sure we're Seeing all the new patterns? How can we prove it to ourselves? Remember, what we cannot See has more influence in our work than what we can!
• Make sure all this doesn't go sideways. This is in reference to that "stoking the fires” comment. In our management, we need to be careful about retriggering our PRR when we attempt to work beyond it. Remember, our brain will contrive patterns where none exist so we have to manipulate this tendency, too. A classic example is sculpting manes and tails—in our attempt to mimic the passive physics of moving hair, we inadvertently create a larger overall pattern that can look too orderly or contrived. So we need to stay open to what our references and life study are really showing us and work to mimic all that with a looser grip on our own patterns.

All together these tactics train our PRR to work for us rather than against us, getting us stuck. In essence then, these tricks make our PRR more responsive to life’s little happenstances and those who practice them find a new ability to perceive new patterns with ease, lending diversity and the “living moment" to their portfolio.

So getting to #3, because our perception directly governs our PRR, all our assumptions, beliefs, judgments, and actions we apply to our pieces are suspect. My friend, Lesli Kathman, wrote a really interesting post on her blog, The Equine Tapestry, touching on this very issue. Specifically, this statement is illustrative:

You’d be surprised how often breed type can override your eye when it comes to spotting similarities (or differences) in patterns. Transferring the pattern over to a different body type can force you to really see things. That’s one reason why the illustrations in the book are on generic horse shapes rather than ones specific to the breed or type being discussed.

And the same applies to realistic equine sculpture. The worrisome thing about creating equine realism is that we literally cannot trust our own Eye, no matter how well-schooled, experienced, or successful we are. With every sculpture or paint job, we must prove to ourselves that our perception is credible enough to warrant a goodly measure of our trust, however the complication is, “what looks right” isn't sufficient proof. Remember what we cannot See is more influential in our work than what we can. Because perception governs pattern recognition, we only key in on those patterns we perceive. From this perspective, deepening our perception can be thought of as recognizing and implementing new, previously unSeen patterns. This is literally how we “learn” to sculpt or paint more realistically. So it’s not just our skillset that improves or even our knowledge base—it’s how we’ve willfully tweaked our perception to better open up our PRR to pick up on fresh new patterns from life.

Now to #4—Our brain’s fixation on its favored patterns will actually create an enthusiastic, little Yes Man in our heads. This is both good and bad, depending how we manage it. To help us understand why, remember that pattern recognition is a learning mechanism evolved for survival, and in progressively better ways. Simply speaking, those ancestors who couldn't instantly connect claws, teeth, and growls with "gruesome, gut–spewing shrieking death" just didn't pass on their genes. Similarly, those who couldn't predict the seasons or animal migrations probably starved to death, or those who couldn't connect the cause and effect of making better fires, tools, weapons, shelters, or clothing probably where hosed in the survival department. Even more sophisticated, those who predicted the social patterns of a culture advanced even faster. It's that sort of thing. Our ability to recognize and learn from patterns is essential not just for this art form then, but for our daily lives as well. It's what we do best.

This is why our brain is alarmingly eager to latch onto any pattern it finds as irrefutable truth—it must. Six million years of human evolution has designed it so, and for very good reason. To follow through on the deal then, our brain works ceaselessly to convince us that an irrefutable pattern most likely applies to all respective situations as well. It must. Better safe than sorry, right? If a bush rustles, for example, we spook instinctively, don't we? (Just like a horse.) This is because we don't know whether it may be a tiger or a bunny doing that rustling until we pause after the fact and think, "Wait a minute." What this means is that our established patterns are real to us by default and applicable to every situation until proven otherwise. Is it clear then how this applies to realistic equine art? Because our Yes Man compels us to apply our patterns across the board, it's not a natural tendency to always countermand them with a "wait a minute." Yet this is the precise response needed while we sculpt or paint. We’ve got to implement a check and balance system for our PRR if we ever hope to create more realistic, organic work.

Regardless, our Yes Man is so entrenched, it still can be pretty tough to let go of our perceived irrefutable facts even when presented with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Flat Earthers are still around, for example, and doomsday cults persist despite their predictions face-planting every single time. And each of us—at some point—refused to believe actual fact as a first reaction in lieu of our more precious perceived truth. That's not because we're stupid. It's because we're hardwired to do so. Remember our perception protects itself and this is just part of that defensive strategy. 

So trying to stop our Yes Man from yapping in our ear isn't going to work. Instead, we need to initiate the new habit of "wait a minute" to put it to better work. We need for it to start proving itself, an extremely useful habit to adopt in equine realism, for this reason...

Now it’s time for #5, "We can never duplicate life's patterns in absolute faithfulness due to the very nature of creating art—we are fallible human beings and not Nature." No matter how hard we try, what training we've had, or how many critiques we engage, we cannot create a truly technically perfect depiction of an equine—only Nature can do that. Perfection in our work is simply a pipe dream, a delusional impossibility—always. Indeed, no matter how “perfect” a piece seems to be, it still will always have hiccups. We’re human after all. What’s more, no matter how vigorously we attend to our perception or PRR, our style, value judgments, blindspots, plateaus, biases, and aesthetics seep into our work. Said another way, the very nature of creating art lends artistic interest to an otherwise clinical art form—which is brilliant!

So what's the point of the art form then? All said and done, perhaps it's learning how to gain conscious control of our craft in order to make thoughtful and informed choices to not only be better artists who can create work that better connects with others, but to be better advocates as well. If we gear our training to this one goal, better, deeper work and a more meaningful understanding are the natural by-products. Why? Because we’ll really have to dig deep into the subject and ourselves to create more authentically. Again, it's the pursuit, the Path we're asked to follow that amplifies the meaning in this art form which could so easily become as inert as an anatomical diagram.

Now coming to #6: "Nature is as much about chaos as it is about order…” And there it is. The crux of the entire issue between our PRR and equine realism: Our chosen art form is based on both order and chaos, because life is too. On one hand then—yes—anatomy and color do have rules, but they also have “organic chaos,” either the effect of the “living moment” on structure, or the genetic “luck of the draw” with color (or even nutritional, age related, grooming, conditioning, shedding, or seasonal changes, among others). And in many cases, these can scramble the expected patterns a lot, and in very surprising ways. Yet our brains work ceaselessly to find and enforce order. We exist in a constant tug of war between organic Nature and what our brains want it to be. Uffdah. 

However, given the nature of equine realism, it's no surprise why this core idea is the most easily forgotten. When we're trying to convey such a complicated, seemingly incomprehensible fleshy, colorful mass that is the equine, the tidy patterns depicted in anatomical diagrams, conformation tenets, and color charts are just too irresistible for our PRR. They're what a grain bucket is to a horse! And this is exactly where the trap gets set. The truth is that despite the orderly patterns illustrated in so many references, the living body and “living moment” are anything but.

So this tug of war poses critical questions for our artistic choices. For one, it brings into sharp focus our over-dependence on anatomy charts versus our good references and life study. For another, it begs the question of developing our Eye to See “organic chaos” in equal measure with the biological patterns. It also calls into question what is correct to our Eye versus what is actually realistic, or what is safe to our Eye versus what is challenging. And it begs the issue of our artistic style and how it may either benefit our art or become a liability. But just as much, it questions how hard we’re willing to apply ourselves to shake loose from our habitual, safe patterns. Here's the thing—grasping the static pattern, the formula, is the easy part. It just takes training and diligence, just like any skill. But being the easy part, it can make us complacent. Sculpting-by-numbers or painting-by-numbers is simple enough, just like cooking from a recipe. Plus, cranking out the pattern reasonably well is more or less recognizable as "accurate" to many people. The average person can do a pretty good job differentiating a more realistic equine sculpture from a lesser one if the right buttons are pushed. But it’s when we get to the situations that require a more sophisticated Eye that perceives nature’s chaos where things get sticky—and where an artist's gumption really shows. This is because it takes far more courage and a punk rock attitude to sculpt beyond our safe patterns since it is—all said and done—a risk. In this sense then, working beyond a static PRR indicates genuinely advanced skills. Indeed, it’s not how well we duplicate the patterns repeatedly that speaks of our mastery—it's how well we tweak them! Indeed, savvy realistic sculpture or paintwork isn't just about what's similar, it's even more about what's different. Like if our series or body of work looks homogenous, what are we missing in our analysis?

This brings us to #7, "our ability to pattern recognize can be manipulated by outside influences.” What we perceive as true is shaped both by our nature and our nurture. This is how our upbringing and cultural layers help to shape our beliefs, assumptions, and actions. So because our perceptions are chiseled by social pressures, so are those patterns we recognize. Just consider for a moment how conformational tenets have shaped our art form, even when some have been proven wrong by science. The long toe-low heel trim is a classic example. Also observe how the Quarter Horse and Arabian halter horses have been so dramatically shifted away from function and towards aesthetics, creating new harmful patterns of body type due to show ring pressures. So artist, beware. Likewise, take care not to fall into the trap of all the fads in our art form because not all of them are truly aligned with reality. For instance, there was that streaky sabino pattern fad that burned its way through our arts some years ago. Always take a stronger cue from the real deal rather than what other artists are doing because remember, they're working within their own problematic PRR as well.

Regimentation

 

There’s more though, of course: Our own patterns can often trap us. How curious that those very aspects of our process we tend to rely on most have the greatest potential to stifle our growth! A classic example of this phenomenon is regimentation in our work, something that pops up both in sculpture and especially in paintwork.

What’s regimentation? Well, it’s when our hand falls into an unconscious pattern of doing something repetitive like ticking, lacy effects, dappling, wrinkles, textures, striations, etc. In the end, what we’ve created then looks artificial or lacking that genetic or situational “luck of the draw” appearance so necessary for organic realism. For instance, our dapples can become too similar in size, shape, and intensity, or our ticked hair growth patterns are too uniform and evenly spaced, or our wrinkles always look like accordion folds.

What’s more regimentation tends to force our hand to go out of scale as our PRR just goes bananas and takes over, and usually in a way that most efficiently — albeit not effectively — gets the job done. This is exactly how the hair-by-hair technique can go out of scale or how lacy effects can grow in size the further along we go.

Regimentation can also make us prone to adapting easy, familiar shapes such as circles for dapples or steaks for ticking. But we see that life just isn't like that...there's a lot more complication and organic mess to it. It's not so tidy and orderly, is it? Nope. It's that "ordered chaos" again, that organic messiness intrinsic to all structure and color which needs our attention inordinately more when we fight regimentation as we work. Again, use order to build a proper equine or color from the get-go, then use chaos to make it organic and realistic. Great equine realism is an expression of both!

Because our work entails duplicating life's organic patterns, it's implied then that our success relies on the minimization of our own contrived patterns we unintentionally infuse into our process. That’s to say not only do we instinctively recognize patterns in life, being artists, we create our own in the very act of duplicating them—argh! The problem when duplicating such things in clay or pigment becomes literally this: Creating a pattern that’s true to life without inadvertently imposing an artificial one of our own. No easy thing because each trips our PRR trigger big time. All this does pose interesting questions for our work…

• How do we do something repetitive, even tedious, without falling victim to that ever-present threat of regimentation?: We take breaks — either with walking away for a bit or simply working on another area of the piece. Also consider painting or sculpting upside down, with upside down references, or sideways even. We can also put our references and a photo of our piece through a photo editing program, even inverting the colors, giving us a fresh new view. We can use the window-trick to better perceive just how organically random things are. All this then throws our brain off-balance, forcing it to rely more on what it clinically Sees rather than what it wants to see. So try to keep your brain off-balance and questioning.
• How do we know when we’ve started creating regimentation?: When we start creeping out of scale is a pretty clear indication. So we have to do what it takes to stay in scale, even counting dapples across a region of the body if need be. What’s more, looking at our piece in a mirror can be a handy way to identify when we’ve gone off track. Pop a photo of our piece into a photo editing program and compare it side-to-side with our scaled reference, and pretty quickly we can tell if we’ve gone sideways. Or a big tell that we’ve fallen into regimentation is when we find ourselves zoning out and working in a rhythm. Indeed, doing anything in a rhythm is a dead giveaway. Another giveaway is falling into the habit of easy shapes rather than the complex, intricate shapes we see in life. For instance, a formulaic approach to muscle groups despite motion, or a series of orderly dots for dapples rather than the organic shapes and placements they tend to be in life. So we must stay constantly alert, vigilant, and aware to truly duplicate life’s organic chaos, and that’s a messy, disorderly business.
• Is "organic" the same as "random"?: Nope! "Organic" is the nexus between order and chaos, between structure and randomness, that living quality that exists between those two points of the spectrum. That's what we want to ping, that balance between a clear pattern and messiness, which is where life operates.
• Are there tricks we can apply that helps us fend off regimentation?: Doing those checks already discussed really help. Also, breaking up our rhythm with moments of chaos can help, too. Try switching brushes or tools at times as well.
• Is creating as little regimentation as possible the trick to organic realism?: Yep — that’s one of the biggies! We want to duplicate organic chaos, not our contrived formulas, so any tactic that minimizes our habitual way of doing things should be just the ticket. 
• When do we actually need regimentation to establish a necessary recognizable pattern, and how do we balance that with organic chaos?: This is the sticky bit…we need just enough regimentation to create an actual equine or coat effect but not so much that we erase organic chaos. This balance is something we progressively learn as we advance, with the most advanced artists finding that balance pretty well. That’s to say, artists new to the equine realism game tend to have the most regimented expressions in clay or paint whereas the more seasoned artists tap much more into organic chaos. So it’s a learned ability most of the time because our brain leans into regimentation, so as long as we’re always working towards organic chaos we’ll likely hit our mark.

Artistic Style

Our brains are wired so well for pattern recognition that all this will become entrenched almost immediately, forming a kind of creative fingerprint. And as we grow, so does our PRR and then so do our aesthetics evolve and grow with us, too. This is the exact mechanism that creates our artistic style, that quality that makes each artist’s work so individually distinct.

But since pattern recognition operates outside of our consciousness, we're typically completely unaware of just how stylized our work really is if we don’t keep tabs on it. But this is exactly why we can see the stylization in the work of others but not in our own work—their patterns are different from ours and so they pop out at us much more clearly.

Yet artistic style isn’t to be frowned on, even in technical realism. Indeed, it’s the very thing that helps to keep this otherwise clinical art form from degenerating into something stale and irrelevant. In short, it keeps equine realism an art rather than something a mindless, soulless machine does. And different strokes for different folks, right? All the different styles appeal to a wide range of tastes, keeping this art form dynamic, vibrant, and ever-compelling! Even in realism, diversity is truly the spice of life as there are multiple ways to express reality well!

However, it does have a tricky side: Unless we keep tabs on it, our artistic style is going to run us aground in the realism department just as fast. The trick then is being able to pull our creative habits—our style—into our consciousness in order to make judgment calls on whether to keep them, tork them, or jettison them with any given piece. You see, it’s okay to choose to keep stylizations if they align with our goals. The problem only happens if unrealistic stylizations happen under our radar and we end up frustrated or confused because of it. For instance, I know I have stylistic habits in the way I sculpt and paint — I’m well aware of them. But I choose to keep them because I like the look of them and they’re my artistic stamp. And that’s the tricky gift—having that empowerment of choice. Absolutely, it makes all the difference in the world not only for the quality and distinctiveness of our art, but our enjoyment creating it.

Workarounds

So if thwarting our PRR is really about injecting more organic chaos into our work and releasing our grip on the set patterns of our assumptions and safe expectations, do we have a series of checks to do that? The happy answer is—yes!

For starters, we can associate our new pieces with emotions or impressions rather than just appearances. In other words, if we allow our creative guts to be moved more by visceral motivations, we tend to loosen up with logistical fixations and habits. In short, we should learn to follow our guts more rather than our heads.

In addition, as Lesli Kathman observed, "There really isn’t any substitute for looking at hundreds and hundreds of variations of the same pattern.” And that’s just it, study—a lot. Literally, if it takes looking at one hundred articulated forelegs or one hundred dapple greys to ferret out all the structured similarities or organic differences between them, then that’s what we need to do. Because when we practice life study or analyze our references, we need to be paying keen attention to what’s different between them, not just what’s the same. Or rather, we gain a lot when we perceive the commonalities, yes, but we gain even more when we perceive the differences since it’s there where organic chaos is to be found.

We should actively seek to challenge our habitual practices, approaches, and tastes with every new piece. Quite literally, what’s something technical that's fresh and new can we inject today in our new piece? Like, always ask, "What if?" You see, it’s not enough to create simply a new concept, we have to create something new technically. So to that end, think about picking references and inspirations that look odd to us, that cause our eyebrow to rise up, and think about how we can infuse that into a new piece. When we turn our work into an exploration of things that challenge our sensibilities, we come that much closer to expressing Nature’s organic diversity. Put another way, our longterm success doesn’t just hinge on those patterns we reproduce, but also on how we tweak them accurately and curiously.

Lastly, always remember that we’re each a complete, self–contained, self-informing universe with an utterly unique frame of reference. What a wonderful thing! But it does have that hitch—it’s an inherent conflict of interest loop—so if we aren’t continually aware of this, trouble isn’t far behind. But if we're aware and practice tactics to keep it in check, we’ll have opened the door to a much bigger world of possibility and progress achievable no other way. Absolutely, with vigilance and awareness in tow, there’s pretty much nothing authentic we cannot duplicate in this demanding and exacting art form.

The Gift of Pattern Recognition

Despite all these complications though, our PRR does have a big benefit when it comes to equine realism: If we get the biological pattern right, we can use it as a highly effective springboard into possibility. Indeed, if we know our basics really well, we're in an impeccable position to tackle anything really well, too. In turn, this leads to creative boldness and confidence, with stronger and more challenging work not far behind. Quite literally then, it’s a wise use of our PRR that directly generates innovation and improvement as we break from our old patterns to build fresh new ones.

Indeed, torking our PRR is a powerful means to learn and grow! Really, our work stays the same if we don't morph it and where’s the fun in that? Routes to advanced development with all the exciting revelations, inventions, growth, and surprises are just waiting for us! Being so, it really helps to keep us geared for challenges that keep our motivations fired up. That being the case, tweaking our PRR is a great way to stay off artistic plateaus, root out our blindspots, and manage our habits and formulas as well was staying enthusiastically engaged in our work.

So our PRR isn’t such a bad thing, is it? Nope! It can be an enormous and indispensable positive that keeps us forging ahead with courage, inspiration, and enlightenment! In this sense then, think about framing PPR as a tool, one that can be redesigned to better work for us at any point in our development.

Conclusion

Learning to put our PRR to work rather than letting it work us over is perhaps the biggest jump in quality we can ever make, even beyond skill building. Our skills are easily attended to with classes, experimentation, and practice, but it’s that ability to tork our PRR that’s the real crux of the progress issue. Get a hold of that and the sky is the limit!

But the big takeaway is this—we must not come to this animal with preconceived notions or intentions. We must remain open and unassuming, as free as possible from our blindspots, plateaus, biases, expectations, and especially an overly skewed perception and an overactive pattern recognition response. If we don’t, we risk more than we may suspect as regimentation and confining comfort zones aren’t far behind. But the nifty thing about that is this: Both our perception and pattern recognition response gift us with a direct means to project our advancement into orbit if we attend to them in ways that improve their data gathering tendencies. We have a straightforward means to kick our work up several notches in one go—that’s a lot of bang for the buck! So it’s not so much a problem with our patterns per se, it’s a problem of not understanding how they can dictate our work in ways that can kick us off track. Simply get a handle on that, and we’re well on our way to meaningful and tangible progress on our own terms! And I can’t think of a better habit to have than that!

"If something keeps happening, there is a pattern behind it...Your results are not accidental. They are patterned. When you change the pattern, you change the outcome.”

— Tony Robbins

A Habitual Problem: Pattern Recognition and Equine Realism

The Ten Commandments Of Creativity

Introduction

Creating artwork in a pushback world can be a daunting proposition, for sure. Yet sometimes, the most pushback can be found within ourselves, in our own negative self-talk and bad habits. That being the case, there are some immutable principles to keep us true to our Path, true to ourselves, and true to our art. And these are non-negotiable tenets — they are Absolute Truths as decreed by the Universe. They just are. If we create by them then, we aren’t only going to gain a lot more authenticity and composure, but we’ll also set ourselves up for doing more art, doing better art, and having a lot more fun doing it. Who can say “no” to that? Indeed, those artists who do say “no” to any one of these truths ends up miserable, below potential, or disillusioned in some way. Who the heck wants that? 

Wrap it all up then and these doctrines then can be thought of as the Ten Commandments of Creativity, the fundamentals every artist should be practicing relentlessly with everything they create from the smallest bauble to the most grandiose masterwork. Indeed, they not only determine our creative destiny, they establish our mindset getting there. So let’s get to it…

The Ten Commandments of Creativity

1. Thou shalt regard each piece as practice for the next.

It’s said that “every new piece is your comeback,” and that’s certainly true. But what’s even more true and far more profound is this: “Each piece is practice for the next,” as wisely observed by Ed Gonzales. That’s to say, forget about comebacks, kudos, fame, and fortune. Those are superficial motivations and fleeting gifts that inevitably fade and fizzle out. They’re the veneer of success, not the meat of the matter. Instead, what’s far more compelling is the practice of our craft with reverence, love, artistry, and enthusiasm. When we walk our Path with devotion, we gain something not afforded any other way — creative poise, a confident pivot point that keeps us growing, adaptable, curious, and centered despite any setbacks or challenges. And not just the kind of confidence that tells us we can create any kind of piece beautifully, but more importantly, the kind of confidence that assures us we can bounce back from every blunder, stronger, more aware, and more adaptive than before. This is the kind of confidence that will launch our progress best by gifting us with composure, courage, and moxie, things that will serve us far better in the long game.

This also means to stay focused on the process and jettison this fixation on the outcome. Why? Well, the outcome is merely the incidental byproduct of the process. So if we’re too tunnel-visioned on the outcome, we’re going to compromise our process and self-sabotage everything right out of the gate. Never do this! Keep all your attention on how you create things, not what you’re creating. Truly, keep your focus where it belongs like this and a great piece, maybe even a masterpiece, is the inevitable result.

Always remember that the “truth is in the work” — always. No matter what flub-ups we make along the way, and no matter how publicly embarrassing they are, just get back to work. Everything we seek is in the work so the answer to any problem, any question, any doubt is to simply get back into the studio and make more art. “Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art,” advised Andy Warhol. Nailed it!

2. Thou shalt not compare thy work to others.

Absolutely, never compare your work to others, but only to your previous work. Your “only rival is within,” as Ruelle sings. Indeed, “comparison is the death of joy,” as Mark Twain said, and he was absolutely spot on. Now it’s okay to be inspired by other artists (as long as we don’t plagiarize) or gain technical insights from them for improving our use of our materials or media. But beyond that? Leave it be. Just let it all go. Seriously.

See, here’s the thing: The work of your admired artists may seem inordinately magical, but believe me when I tell you — you have your own magic, special and perfect! And a magic that is utterly unique in all space and time. Think about that for a moment, how profound and precious that is. In other words, you don’t need to create like so-and-so or become as good as who-zits. You don’t need their magic—you have your own! So release your envies and fears, and come to embrace your magic and let it fully shine through! Because even further, your unique art only has you in all existence to manifest into reality, you are its one and only conduit. What a reverential gift, so value it for the miracle that it is! 

It’s always a losing proposition to denigrate your work or inspirations as compared to others, especially those who are long established and successful. Even science tells us that we should never evaluate our work against those at the top of the game because that inevitably leads to frustration, intimidation, and disillusionment. So if you do feel the temptation to compare your work to others, studies show that picking those at your level or one higher is the better policy. By doing so, you stand a better chance at gaining an insight without becoming overwhelmed or distraught. But ideally, avoid that temptation all together. Rather, we should study the living subject more closely and look to our older work for guidance, both of which tend to project us onto more meaningful and authentic progress with a healthier mindset.

3. Thou shalt not believe in perfection.

Undeniably, perfection is an illusion. It’s a lie, a myth, and a delusion. As Stephen Hawking said, "One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist...Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist." Indeed. And no — no one is creating “perfect” equine art. Absolutely no one, ever. Even scanned 3D prints are flawed due to the inherent limitations of the technology. Only Nature can create perfection. Equine DNA has it on lock. As for us, we are fallible human beings who will always input errors and skews in our work no matter how hard we try. Even our technologies will ultimately fail us. In fact, we could attempt something one thousand times and still pull up short. Even the potter who’s made ten thousand mugs still doesn’t create a perfect mug. "Inevitability, Mr. Anderson." 

Now this isn’t to say to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Absolutely, we have to be as technically accurate as we can muster in this equine realism art form. Instead, it’s to say we should stop bullying ourselves and each other when that brass ring is missed. Everybody misses that brass ring! And even more, how cruel is it to shame someone for missing it when missing it was inevitable? What kind of impossible task is that? And "perfection" is an entirely subjective construct. Indeed, put a “perfect” piece in front of ten learned folks, and each one will pick out an error. Why? Because what appears “perfect” to one doesn’t to another. This is because everyone perceives reality differently, generating very different ideas of what “perfection” actually is. This is why twenty different artists can paint the very same still life apple and their paintings will all look quite different. Truly, it’s a marvel at every paint n’ sip I attend when each painter’s interpretation is markedly different! Same paints, same brushes, same lighting, same canvas, same teacher, same process, same example — yet all completely different. And here’s the kicker — this not only is a curious thing, it’s a marvelous thing for our art form! How so? Well, different strokes for different folks! This phenomenon keeps our clinical art form from becoming stale and irrelevant through that injection of the human heart. It’s not a liability, it's a benefit!

Rather than fixating on perfection then, the better option to immerse ourselves in the Japanese concept of imperfection and impermanence, or wabi-sabi. Here we find all our answers for creating great work from it's single-minded focus on the creative process to the acceptance of, even the rejoicing in imperfection. In fact, this is embraced so much that the wonderful practice of kintsugi is an old cherished repairing method in Japan. See, in wabi-sabi, the very human experience of creating art is appreciated in all its depth with the keen understanding that a great outcome is merely a happy by-product of a fully engaged process. That's so important to fully understand! If we adopt wabi-sabi then, we'll find that our studio life improves ten-fold as we loosen up and lean into our techniques, instincts, and Voice more which, in turn, improves our art in ways that only come this way. In essence, we come to stop fretting over the "perfect" product and come to savor the creative journey more and in so doing, come to find new meaning and motivation in our arting plus an improvement of our processes. Now this may seem wildly incompatible with a technically based art form where we have to create as "perfectly" as possible. And this is true, but only to a point. Because it's also true that Nature is defined by "organic chaos" and happenstance so unless we can inject that into our clay or pigment, we'll miss our mark all the same. In other words, true realism is a balance of order and chaos, but here's the kicker: It's only through wabi-sabi that we can best achieve this coveted balance! Ultimately then, only when we loosen our grip on "perfection" do we learn to bend the rules to best express all the diversity and situational variations Nature presents us. It sounds crazy, I know — but it works!

So as Vince Lombardi wisely advised, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” Well said. Strive to be excellent, not perfect. One is achievable and the other isn't, and we need to know the difference so we don’t bully ourselves — and others — along the way. Honestly, what’s far more important is preserving and cultivating art joy in our community, that unbridled zeal for arting that keeps people curious, engaged, and bold. This is the means to lift up our art form, this kind of positive reinforcement that builds confidence and self-worth, not berating criticism that only serves to poison our well with disillusionment, discouragement, and shame. If we want more people creating more great work then, it’s through art joy! So spread that around! Lather, rinse, repeat!

4. Thou shalt not chase external validation.

Believe it or not, but you are the only person you have to please with your work. You, and only you. Anyone else? They should have no place at your table. As Rick Rubin advises, “The audience comes last.” Why? Well, when we seek kudos from others, when we put the audience at the forefront of our creative concerns, we’ll pretzel ourselves to please them and that’s the moment when we compromise, even pollute our own Voice — never do that. Why? Because our art will lose its purity and power with our betrayal of its essence. That’s to say, we’ll cease to actually create our art and create the art of someone else’s sensibilities, and that, my friend, is an artistic cardinal sin. Our individual Voice is unique in all existence — never ever forsake it, especially to seek someone else’s approval or the validation of the hive mind. We should create according to our own Voice at all times, potently, powerfully, and unpolluted. This is what makes our art our own and what collectors actually appreciate most. This is also how we carve out a lasting dynasty of our own. Absolutely, it’s the artists with the strongest and most distinctive Voices who have the lasting impact, not those who create compromised work because they chased the wrong motivations.

Now this isn’t to say that seeking constructive critique from trusted peers is wrong. Nope. It’s to say to keep all that and any input — from criticisms to unsolicited “advice” — always in very sharp perspective. Never forget, you don’t have to take anyone’s suggestion as gospel! Not anyone’s. Why? Because remember that they’re human, too, with all their blindspots, biases, knowledge gaps, conceits, and skews. We have to stand on our own feet first in order to put their suggestions to the test and jettison them confidently when they don’t actually jive with our own goals or sensibilities, or our Voice. What's more, having this sort of authority puts us in a strong position to defend our work, a survival skill every artist should cultivate. Because there will come a time when we will have to do just that and we'll need that credibility and confidence to do that incisively. But more still, we have to defend our art from ourselves! Yes — ourselves. We must realize that the greatest threat to our own work is ourself — usually in the form of negative self-talk, spinning our wheels, "updating," or overworking — and we need this kind of self-reflected composure to leave things be when they're actually the best they can be at that moment. Indeed, calling done with a piece is as important a moment as starting a new one. 

See, here's the thing: No one knows your Truth like you do. If you aren’t validating something unethical, always walk the Path according to your own Truth. And if you feel compelled to consider the advice of learned others, never take it at face value. Put it to the test because, never forget, everyone has flawed Sight, even the most accomplished among us.

5. Thou shalt fear no mistake.

So many folks never even start arting out of fear — fear of failure, fear of shame, fear of intimidation, and especially the fear of mistakes. What a needless avoidance! See, here’s the kicker: Mistakes aren’t your enemy, they’re your very pathways for improvement! We simply cannot get great at our craft if we don’t make mistakes. Everyone makes them! And every great artist ever has made more mistakes than they can count — that’s how they got great. So never fear a mistake — embrace it for the moment of enlightenment that it is.

What’s more, so often a mistake is really a happy accident that takes our piece either into a new exciting direction or to a whole new level. Absolutely then, always remain sensitive to the happy accident! In fact, learn to generate them and preserve them, and we’ll find that our pieces begin to create themselves, and much more effortlessly, more accurately, and more enjoyably. The truth is when we make our creative soil fertile for that seed, the quality of our work accelerates exponentially, even beyond our control, and pretty soon we’re wondering how such great work is popping out of our studio!

More still, we should learn to trust our creative instincts, our artistic guts more. That’s to say, if we dedicate ourselves to excellence with diligence long enough, we’ll eventually find a stillpoint inside our skills that allows us to tap into our gutty instincts a lot more. This, in turn, lets us release our fervent mind that makes us prone to overworking and overthinking, two things that kill almost as many pieces as fear. And the more we mine our instincts, the more powerful our Voice, the more realistically organic our work, and the more compelling our art becomes. But here’s the thing, it’s in our mistakes where we find the clues about our instincts, our Voice, and our Truth! This is because what looks right or wrong to us as we develop on our artistic journey are the features of our creative guts — pay attention to them to find the edges of our strengths, our trouble spots, and our creative sensibilities. Learn to do this well, and sooner than we think, we’ll improve our work in ways that come no other way.

Wrap it all up then, and we should come to trust ourselves in our ability to fix our mistakes on the fly. Honestly, most mistakes are fixable! Never forget that we are the creator here — what we create we can redo to try again. And if we get stuck — hey, it happens — that's when we reach out to trusted peers for solutions and, in so doing, expand our own skillset and grow. So we shouldn't fear mistakes, we should reinterpret them as our stepping stones to progress. Without a doubt, no artist anywhere at any time has never made a whole heckuva a lot of mistakes. It's simply an integral part of the arting process. So deep breath and onward to glory!

6. Thou shalt embrace hard work, patience, and perseverance.

Creating art takes work and courage. Creating good art takes more work and gumption. Creating great work takes a lot of work and perseverance. Creating a masterpiece takes even more work with dedicated, patient followthrough. If we want to make incredible work then, we need to walk the talk. Great artists are made, not born. That’s to say, innate talent will only take us so far before it fails us at which point, it’s training and dedication that’ll take us further to carry us to mastery. This also means that someone with “no talent” can become a master given they’re willing to dedicate the effort. As Bob Ross astutely observed, "Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do." Yep.

The fact is that those who fail and quit, even if they have a “natural talent,” didn’t embrace this truth. They simply stopped — from fear, frustration, disillusionment, or discouragement — before the real work began. In all actuality, too, those with a “natural talent” tend to fall into this trap quicker because when a real challenge pops up and they struggle, they’re the most prone to quit. Hey, if things have been too easy for us, that tends to make us "soft dogs" in the face of a real challenge, a sure recipe for quitting. The truth is that we must learn to persevere through the hardships and setbacks to always double down and try again — and again and again and again until we learn things so thoroughly that they become second nature. Then after we’ve learned these technicalities so well, we can stop thinking about them and springboard off our instincts, and at that point, the pieces just create themselves. In other words, we must learn the alphabet before we can make words (passable work) and sentences (good work) and paragraphs (great work) and finally the novels (masterpieces). And learning the alphabet simply requires hard work, endurance, and patient followthrough. Honestly, attaining mastery is really just the result of a lot of that synergy.

And sure, those with natural talent sure make it seem easy, but most of them are trying their hardest, too, and making plenty of mistakes along the way as they learn the technical ropes. Always remember that no one is creating “perfect” work and what seems like natural, blithe ease is really years of experience at work. Like a classically trained actor who knows their lines, cues, and marks on opening night, so does a masterful artist know their materials, tools, techniques, technicalities, theory, and particulars. And once the lines are memorized, the acting can begin just as once the technicalities are learned, the real art can be created. And yes, all this takes focused hard work and loving perseverance. There's no other way.

7. Thou shalt have faith in your art’s appeal.

If there is one universal truth to all art, it’s that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” It may be cliché, but it's still an absolute truth. There is no rhyme or reason to what artfully triggers someone. It’s a true mystery and one of the many magical features of art. Maybe it’s a memory, a visceral reaction, or maybe just a love for the feel of our work, our technique, our color palette, or maybe it’s simply “just cuz.” But whatever the reason, the truth is there’s always someone out there, somewhere who'll love our work. Every single piece of art, no matter how “bad,” has a home somewhere. Heck, there are fans of black velvet paintings and paintings of poker-playing dogs! There are those fifteen-minute, $35 paintings sold on the side of the road that can sell like hotcakes! Someone I knew in college actually paid for his four years doing just this! And there’s Jose Trujillo on eBay who sells his quickie pieces that go at auction from anywheres of $5 to $500! There is a piece of art for everyone.

Our job then is to find those who’ll love our art and target them in full confidence that they’re out there. So have faith. Also consider this: We shouldn’t put too much credence into those who don’t respond positively to our art, but focus on those who do. Because the flip side to all this is that we won’t appeal to everyone with our art either. We just cannot please everyone, all the time. And that’s perfectly okay! Hey, if we are pleasing everyone, something is very wrong, isn’t it? What are we compromising? What are we not pushing and challenging? Where are we being too timid, safe, and milquetoast? Dumbed down art does have a home, too, but the point is we'll fall far short of our potential if we pander to the masses. Always create your artistic Truth.

Any which way, believe that your art has inherent value and trust that someone will love it like bonkers — because they’re out there. Yet here’s the thing, create your art anyway. Even if the cosmos decrees that we never match up with those special someones out there, we should be creating our work anyway. Because here’s the deal: The real joy in creating art isn’t to be found in the kudos, it’s to be found in the making. All the love, devotion, dedication, learning, and sanctity we poured into our piece is the real satisfaction — always remember that. Your art always has intrinsic worth!

8. Thou shalt not listen to critics.

As Brené Brown admits, “There is nothing more vulnerable than creativity.” She goes onto observe, ”Vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity. To create is to make something that has never existed before. There's nothing more vulnerable than that.” Truth. All this is to say that creating art is inherently a position of vulnerability. Not of weakness, but of vulnerability — there’s a difference. And as magnificent as this is, it also does make artists highly susceptible to negative feedback if they don’t have ample coping mechanisms to process it all out — because out it has to go. Not internalized, not evaluated, not agonized over — simply out out out. Why? Because all those terrible voices in our head can be a fatal distraction to our creativity and our Voice that can even get us to stop entirely if it spins out of control. We’ve got to nip it in the bud and filter out all that poison to stay joyous, engaged, and bold in our arting. Simply put, we’ve got to learn how to jettison all negative pushback for the disposable noise that it is.

But this is no easy feat as we humans have a negative bias hardwired into our noggins. This tendency is thought have helped our survival during evolution by fixating on those patterns or events that proved threatening but, well…when it comes to making art, this is actually a liability. How so? Well, this negative bias will force us to fixate on the one or two unpleasant comments out of the sea of kudos, wildly compelling us to distort the reality of things. This is exactly why an artist can get a hundred positive comments, for example, but they all go out the window in lieu of that one negative comment which then loops in their minds until that’s all they hear — forever. So unless we find a way to short circuit this effect, we’ll quickly pollute our art joy and get disillusioned. We do this by first understanding that this phenomenon is just a knee-jerk hardwired reaction that has no relevance to creating art and, second, that it doesn’t tell us the truth of things by presenting a skewed perspective. So when we come to fully understand that negative pushback and our negative bias work together to present a distorted reality, we can better learn to take it all with an enormous grain of salt and call it a day.

And this is of imperative importance because the unfortunate truth is that creating art automatically attracts ugliness — often in the form of criticism — like a moth to a flame. Because everyone’s a critic, right? Sadly, yes. And the more successful we become, the more negative pushback we’re going to attract. It’s almost like an icky badge of honor. You’re a popular artist with a bunch of yappers, trolls, icky comments, and naysayers now? Welcome to the club — you’ve arrived. Despite it all, there are just some people out there who derive their life-force from being awful or who are just careless and thoughtless, and that’s just the way it is. And there are plenty more, typically non-artistic types, who have no qualms about imposing, even bullying their creative sensibilities onto creatives, not understanding what bad manners this actually is. It’s not “helping,” it’s harm! It's not offering a "helpful" insight, it's lobbing an injury! There are also others out there who are so damaged that they lash out at others who outshine them to sooth their own deep, festering insecurities. And then there are all the prowling trolls and haters who just have to be horrible to feel alive. All this is to say that these situations are a them problem not a you problem. As the Germans would say, it’s all “hobbyless behavior” (or in German, "hobbyloses verhalten”). Literally, these folks need to get a life. But will they? Nope. They’ll just plague artists by the herd-full and the more we put ourselves out there, the more they'll show up. Just remember it’s all coming from the same yucky place — a deeply insecure need to feel important and powerful. That’s to say, it’s all insecurity and fear, so if we can keep it framed that way, negative pushback almost becomes a spectator sport. Honestly, as Taylor Swift sings in her song, Ours, “People throw rocks at things that shine.” Indeed, someone rises higher in some way, and there’ll be someone compelled to chop them down as sure as the sun will rise.

So don’t let them. Don’t let them win! Their goal is to make us feel inferior so they can feel superior, so why hand that to them? We have more gumption and punky attitude than that! So as Brené Brown keenly advises, “If you aren’t in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your opinion.” And there it is. Period. Full stop. In fact, her quote is inspired by Theodore Roosevelt’s powerful “Man in the Arena” 1910 speech:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

And whomp, there it is. In kind, there’s also the astute observation of Anton Ego from my favorite movie, Ratatouille, a film that speaks directly to artists: 

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

Booyah. So always always always “dare greatly” and ignore the pushback. Just flat out ignore it. We should never allow someone to dull our shine. Blaze brightly, artist! And to do just that, internalize and live by these wise words of Georgia O’Keefe, “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.” Absolutely, there’s no better headspace for an artist.

So no — our critics don’t count. Not in the least! They’re just disposable noise out there so instead focus all that energy onto making more art, courageously, boldly, joyously, and rebelliously! Creative mosh pit!

9. Thou shalt not chase your Vision too zealously.

Our vision is an impossible grail, by design. It has to be, doesn’t it? This gleaming, shining, and perfect inspiration to get us off our duff and diving into the passion of creating it — so of course it is! Its perfection becomes our tempting carrot to chase — just don’t chase it too manically. Like perfection, our impeccable vision only exists in our heads and that’s were it’ll ever exist. Like a beautiful dream we can’t quite remember upon waking, our vision sits just beyond our grasp but always drawing us forwards towards it, forever a glowing, exquisite moving target. That’s because, like perfection, it’s an impossible prize to truly capture.

So rather than killing ourselves outright trying to grab it to “perfectly” flesh it out  — which we can never do anyway — seek to get only halfway there. Indeed, getting just 25% of it out of our head and into our clay or pigment is a huge win that typically produces great work. Indeed, that vision is so potent, just a mere whiff can be enough to create a masterwork! So why only strive for a percentage of our perfect vision? Well, we become less prone to overworking our piece, less apt to overthinking it, and far less vulnerable to disillusionment and frustration. And this is an imperative because overworking ruins a piece beyond rescue, overthinking only leads to dead ends, and discouragement prevents us from continuing our artistic journey, all three major — and entirely avoidable — creative catastrophes. Honestly, these three hiccups are so common among inexperienced artists that together they’re the #2 reason why art never gets created, right behind the #1 reason, fear. Don’t stumble into this trap! Always remember that our visions are impossible grails so rather than blowing apart our experience trying to snatch them from the mysterious ether en total, we should use that inspiration to inform rather than dictate our work. Your art with thank you as will your nerves.

10. Thou shalt be patient and gracious with yourself.

Perhaps the most important commandment of all, we should relentlessly practice patience with ourselves and in the creation of our art. You see, it’s unavoidable: Creating great work takes time — time to learn how and time to actually make it and time to keep progressing. There’s no rushing or shortcuts when it comes to this sort of thing. And making great art isn’t all romanticized glamour and mystique either! Many steps can be interpreted as tedious, messy, and exhausting, even maddening, yet we have to slog through them all the same. 

And most assuredly, we will stumble, even faceplant at some point with our art. Every artist does! Every artist has "bad art days" as sure as the rain will fall, so matter how accomplished and experienced they are. We're human, after all. And not everything will go right everyday in the studio either. Truly, some days may feel like a giant waste of time, even uninspiring. All this is normal and we aren't alone. The point is though to give ourselves permission to experience these things without judgment or negative self-talk. They're part of our journey, too.

As a countermeasure then, we should always show ourselves grace, especially when we’re at our most haired out or down about things. Because if we don’t, we’ll set ourselves up for failure through negative self-talk and discouragement, the two archenemies of creativity. Don’t let the bad vibes win! Dousing ourselves with encouragement and graciousness is a heady inoculation to stave them off, so never forget this most important tenet. It’s actually the one that can reliably save us when we most need it! In fact, as Banksy smartly advised, "If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit." So while great art always demands patience, we should be ever quicker to show patience with ourselves.

Conclusion

Perhaps now we can see how practicing these Ten Commandments of Creativity can set us up for sustained success over the years. They’re simply seated at the foundation of all our efforts supporting us through thick and thin. Most of all though, they recognize that we’re vulnerable human beings who are just trying their best, but it’s in the striving for our own brand of excellence where the magic happens. Truly, making art is a mysterious endeavor full of unexpected turns and surprising outcomes, rarely a straightforward process. Every piece brings with it a new set of challenges and plot twists we have to adapt to and tackle. On top of that, we have to field all manner of public reaction to our art, never an easy task for sure. In short then, making art asks a lot from us. A lot a lot from us, and that can really wear us down sometimes. Yet it’s through these Ten Commandments that we can find reconciliation and enlightenment with our own motivations, inspirations, and joys to keep us buoyant in our creativity. Indeed, through them, we come to understand not only making our art better, but also ourselves better on a deeply personal level, and that usually spells one thing: More compelling art coming out of our studio with greater engagement from us. And what better way to practice worship of our inspirations and reverence for our Path is there than that?

"You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.”

— Sophia Bush

The Ten Commandments Of Creativity