Is Artistic Skill Natural or Learned?

Of course, I realize whether an artistic skill is natural or learned will bring about as many answers as can be written on the subject. I feel that my opinion is not a black-and-white pat answer for everyone-simply for myself. And my feelings and emotions have been part of a path that began for me at six-years of age, approximately fifty-three years ago. I never realized what was happening as I fell in love with my colored paints and pencils, feeling and smelling the waxy crayons as I colored my little pictures. Every week I would save my allowance to buy paint-by-numbers for fifty-cents each. I would run out of pictures to paint, and have to buy the same ones over and over again in the little farming town I lived in.

I did not recognize I had an artistic talent until I entered therapy about twenty-five years ago, due to severe highs and lows of my moods, almost to the point of being uncontrollable. I felt as if I were going crazy, yet could impulsively send out artwork that has won show after show, which had begun in the seventh grade in El Monte, California. I felt I could not live that way any more, and was willing to do just about anything to stabilize myself from the roller coaster I was living on.

I found a therapist, who thankfully recognized my artistic talent, and told me, "I can give you medication and level you off. And then you will be like everyone else-stable, calm, and serene with just a slight bit of depression at times. Or you can recognize the God-given talent you have, and these ups-and-downs are part of that creative talent you were born with. The choice is up to you." I went home and thought about it, deciding I was tired of the mood swings. I called her and told her I would go on the medication. And I did for six months. I was very calm, very stable, and very okay. Yet I could not draw.

Oh, I could draw properly and adequately. My graphic designs were good, my illustrations were fine, and my colors were balanced. My artwork was good but not great. I felt I was not truly creating. My artwork felt flat, not burning within my soul to put something on that paper, where I could see images coming up to the point of floating above the paper's texture. I could not see them in my mind and in my heart and in my soul. It would not develop inch-by-inch as it quickly spread across the corners, moving on its own-but could only be done when I quickly sketched it out and painted it. Period.

I found out that natural artistic skills are not separate things from learned artistic skills. They are the same things, just on different levels to enhance one another. That is, if the artist has a natural talent to begin with. And needless to day, I am no longer on medication to stabilize myself but instead am creating these days, with full understanding that this is who I really am-an artist-a natural born artist.