I’m in art school and I have a big problem with precision and lack of “sloppiness” in my work. I’m sort of hesitant to try to improve in this area, however, because I suspect it reflects some sort of biological limit—maybe the size of some area in the cerebellum or something, I don’t know. Am I right in thinking this?
Seems to me that that’s likely a self-fulfilling prophecy, which I subjectively estimate is at least as likely to prevent you from doing better as an actual biological problem. Maybe try to think of more ways to get better at it—perhaps some different kind of exercises—and do your best at those, before drawing any conclusions about your fundamental limits… because those conclusions themselves will limit you even more.
I have never biked twenty miles in one go. It could be that this reflects some inherent limit. Or it could be that I just haven’t tried yet.
If I believe that it is an inherent limit, how might I test my belief? Only by trying anyway. If I try and succeed, then I will update.
If I believe that it is not an inherent limit, how might I test my belief? Only by trying anyway. If I try and fail, then I will update.
In either case, the test of my ability Is not in contemplating what mechanisms of self might limit me, But in trying anyway, when I have the opportunity to do so, And seeing what happens.
Be careful not to find yourself 7 miles away from home on your bike and too tired to keep on cycling.
If that means arranging with a friend to pick you up in their car if you have to bail out, or picking a circular route that never takes you that far from home, or any other way of handling the contingency. Going “but suppose I fail!” and not trying is an even worse piece of wormtonguing than the one fubarobfusco is addressing.
I think it’s a metaphor thing. Like, in writing, if you say “The shadow of a lamppost lay on the ground like a spear. He walked and it pierced him like a spear.” What more description of the scene do you need than that? In fact, talking about the color of the path or what kind of trousers our character was wearing would be counterproductive to the quality of the writing.
One could view sloppiness in art in the same way—use of metaphor that captures the scene without the need for detail.
Maybe your tendency towards precision is at the wrong times? If practicing, for example, it might be counterproductive since you probably want quantity instead of quality, or maybe you’re trying to get everything down precisely too early on and it’s making your work stiff.
Manfred’s point is good- “metaphor that captures the scene without the need for detail.”… If you render background details overmuch, they can distract the viewer from the focal point of the work. Maybe put some effort into looking at how the “metaphors” of different things work? For example, how more skilled artists draw/paint grass in the distance, or whatnot.
I think it’s a common thing to sort of notice something wrong in an area, and to spend a lot of time on that area in hopes of fixing it, which would make it less sloppy… Maybe sketch that thing a lot for practice.
If you’re drawing from life, it’s possible that lack of sloppiness comes from not making sense of the gestalt, so to speak. I’d think that understanding the form of the subject and how the lighting on it works means you can simplify things away. I don’t do much (read: any) figure drawings from life, but I’d imagine that understanding the figure and what’s important and what isn’t would be helpful. Maybe doing some master copies of skilled, more abstract drawings of the figure would help. Maybe look up a comic artist or cartoonist you like and look at what they do.
ETA:
To address your actual question, I’d say I don’t know any particular evidence for why that should be so.
Rationality-technique-wise: It’s good that you asked people, since that would bring you evidence of the idea being true or false. In the future it might be even more useful to suppress hypothesizing until some more investigating has gone on- “biological limit” is the sort of thing that feels true if you don’t understand how to do something or how to understand how to do something. I think there’s a post about this, or something; let me see if I can find it… ETA2: The exact anecdote I was thinking of doesn’t apply as much as I thought it did, but maybe the post “Fake Explanations” or something applies?
I would guess that you try to exert too much control. The kind of “sloppiness” that’s useful for creativity is about letting things go.
Meditation might help.
As you are female, dancing a partner dance where you have to follow and can’t control everything might be useful. Letting go of trying to control is lesson 101 for a lot of woman who pick up Salsa dancing.
I would guess that you try to exert too much control. The kind of “sloppiness” that’s useful for creativity is about letting things go.
I’m already good at this part of creativity, but precision is also pretty important. Right now I’m working on a project where I have to trace in pen (can’t erase, flaws are obvious) photographs that I took. Letting things go won’t help here.
As a lead, you learn that you aren’t really controlling much of anything in Salsa either. You’re setting boundary conditions; follows have a fascinating way of exploring the space of those boundaries in ways you often don’t expect.
But I’m guessing that you’ve hit on the right direction of interpretation of sloppiness as letting go of control. I’d extend that to too much self conscious control. Great art, and particularly great dancing, is finding a clear intention and a method of focusing your discursive consciousness and voluntary attention that harnesses the rest* of your capabilities for the same intention.
When the self monitoring person in your head tries to do too much, he gets in the way of the rest of you doing it right.
As a lead, you learn that you aren’t really controlling much of anything in Salsa either. You’re setting boundary conditions; follows have a fascinating way of exploring the space of those boundaries in ways you often don’t expect.
For advanced dancing that’s true. For beginners, not so much. At the beginning Salsa is the guy leading a move and the woman following.
If you are a guy and want to learn dancing for the sake of letting go control I wouldn’t recommend Salsa. I think it took me 1 1⁄2 years to get to that point.
A whole 1 1⁄2 years? Took me a lot longer than that. I’ve been at Salsa mainly for about a decade.
Yes, the unfortunate fact is that most leads are taught to “lead moves” when they start. If they were taught to lead movement, they’d make faster progress, IMO. Leading should be leading, to the point of manipulation, and not signaling a choreographed maneuver. I’ve seen a West Coast instructor teach a beginning class that way, and thought it was the best beginning class I had ever seen.
A whole 1 1⁄2 years? Took me a lot longer than that.
I think on of the turning events was for me my first Bachata Congress in Berlin. I didn’t know too many Bachata patterns and after hours of dancing the brain just switches off and let’s the body do it’s thing.
But you are right that it might well take longer for the average guy. That means it’s not a good training exercise to pick up the skill of letting go control for man.
For woman on the other hand it’s something to be learned at the beginning.
Yes, the unfortunate fact is that most leads are taught to “lead moves” when they start.
At the beginning I mainly thought I didn’t understand what teaching dance is all about and that a bunch of teachers have something like real expertise.
The more I dance the more I think that their teaching is very suboptimal. A local Salsa teacher teaches mainly patterns in her lessons. On the other hand she writes on her blog about how it’s all in the technique and about traits like confidence. It’s also not like she didn’t learn dance at formal dance university courses for 5 years, so she should know a bit.
Things like telling a guy who dances with a bit of distance to the girl to dance closer, just aren’t good advice when the girl isn’t comfortable with dancing closer. Yes, if they would dance closer things would be nicer, but there usually a reason why a pair has the distance it has.
Leading should be leading, to the point of manipulation, and not signaling a choreographed maneuver.
Manipulation is an interesting choice of words. What do you mean with it?
I remember a Kizomba dance a year ago where I didn’t know much Kizomba. I did have a lot of partner perception from Bachata. I picked up enough information from my dance partner that I could just follow her movements in a way where she didn’t thought she was leading but I was certainly dancing a bunch of steps with her I hadn’t learned in a lecture.
To use sort of what “manipulation” means in osteopathy I think you could call that nonmanipluative leading. In Bachata I think there are a lot of situation where a movement is there in the body but surpressed and things get good if they lead can “free” the movement and stabilize it. I think such nonmanipulative dancing is quite beautiful.
Unfortunately I’m not good enough to do that in Salsa and even in Bachata I’m not always having good enough perception.
But I’m guessing that you’ve hit on the right direction of interpretation of sloppiness as letting go of control. I’d extend that to too much self conscious* control. Great art, and particularly great dancing, is finding a clear intention and a method of focusing your discursive consciousness and voluntary attention that harnesses the rest of your capabilities for the same intention.
That seems related with the common observation that it’s easier to speak a foreign language when drunk than when sober: in the latter case I feel I’m so worried of saying something grammatically incorrect that I end up speaking in very simple sentences and very haltingly. (And the widespread use of drugs among rock musicians is well-known.)
If other people working the same craft have managed to achieve precision, it’s very unlikely to be a biological limit, right? The resolution of human fine motor skills is really high.
You didn’t mention what the craft was or the nature of the sloppiness, but have you considered using simple tools to augment technical skills? Perhaps a magnifying glass, rulers. pieces of string/clay or other suitably shaped objects to guide the hand, etc?
You could try doing something that gives immediate feedback for sloppiness, like simple math problems for example. You might gain some generalizable insight like that speed affects sloppiness. Since you already practice meditation, it should be easier to become aware of the specific failure modes that contribute to sloppiness, which doesn’t seem to be a well defined thing in itself.
I’m in art school and I have a big problem with precision and lack of “sloppiness” in my work. I’m sort of hesitant to try to improve in this area, however, because I suspect it reflects some sort of biological limit—maybe the size of some area in the cerebellum or something, I don’t know. Am I right in thinking this?
Seems to me that that’s likely a self-fulfilling prophecy, which I subjectively estimate is at least as likely to prevent you from doing better as an actual biological problem. Maybe try to think of more ways to get better at it—perhaps some different kind of exercises—and do your best at those, before drawing any conclusions about your fundamental limits… because those conclusions themselves will limit you even more.
I have never biked twenty miles in one go.
It could be that this reflects some inherent limit.
Or it could be that I just haven’t tried yet.
If I believe that it is an inherent limit, how might I test my belief?
Only by trying anyway.
If I try and succeed, then I will update.
If I believe that it is not an inherent limit, how might I test my belief?
Only by trying anyway.
If I try and fail, then I will update.
In either case, the test of my ability
Is not in contemplating what mechanisms of self might limit me,
But in trying anyway, when I have the opportunity to do so,
And seeing what happens.
Be careful not to find yourself 7 miles away from home on your bike and too tired to keep on cycling.
If that means arranging with a friend to pick you up in their car if you have to bail out, or picking a circular route that never takes you that far from home, or any other way of handling the contingency. Going “but suppose I fail!” and not trying is an even worse piece of wormtonguing than the one fubarobfusco is addressing.
Just to be clear: you’re worried that you aren’t sloppy enough?
If so, for us non-artists, can you explain how ‘sloppiness’ can be a good thing?
Sorry, I communicated poorly. I meant [introducting] lack of sloppiness into my work. That’s not what I meant. I’m too sloppy.
You should edit the original question. People seem to be answering the wrong question below.
I think it’s a metaphor thing. Like, in writing, if you say “The shadow of a lamppost lay on the ground like a spear. He walked and it pierced him like a spear.” What more description of the scene do you need than that? In fact, talking about the color of the path or what kind of trousers our character was wearing would be counterproductive to the quality of the writing.
One could view sloppiness in art in the same way—use of metaphor that captures the scene without the need for detail.
And no, of course it’s not a biological limit.
Some guesses on my part-
Maybe your tendency towards precision is at the wrong times? If practicing, for example, it might be counterproductive since you probably want quantity instead of quality, or maybe you’re trying to get everything down precisely too early on and it’s making your work stiff.
Manfred’s point is good- “metaphor that captures the scene without the need for detail.”… If you render background details overmuch, they can distract the viewer from the focal point of the work. Maybe put some effort into looking at how the “metaphors” of different things work? For example, how more skilled artists draw/paint grass in the distance, or whatnot.
I think it’s a common thing to sort of notice something wrong in an area, and to spend a lot of time on that area in hopes of fixing it, which would make it less sloppy… Maybe sketch that thing a lot for practice.
If you’re drawing from life, it’s possible that lack of sloppiness comes from not making sense of the gestalt, so to speak. I’d think that understanding the form of the subject and how the lighting on it works means you can simplify things away. I don’t do much (read: any) figure drawings from life, but I’d imagine that understanding the figure and what’s important and what isn’t would be helpful. Maybe doing some master copies of skilled, more abstract drawings of the figure would help. Maybe look up a comic artist or cartoonist you like and look at what they do.
ETA:
To address your actual question, I’d say I don’t know any particular evidence for why that should be so.
Rationality-technique-wise: It’s good that you asked people, since that would bring you evidence of the idea being true or false. In the future it might be even more useful to suppress hypothesizing until some more investigating has gone on- “biological limit” is the sort of thing that feels true if you don’t understand how to do something or how to understand how to do something. I think there’s a post about this, or something; let me see if I can find it… ETA2: The exact anecdote I was thinking of doesn’t apply as much as I thought it did, but maybe the post “Fake Explanations” or something applies?
I would guess that you try to exert too much control. The kind of “sloppiness” that’s useful for creativity is about letting things go.
Meditation might help.
As you are female, dancing a partner dance where you have to follow and can’t control everything might be useful. Letting go of trying to control is lesson 101 for a lot of woman who pick up Salsa dancing.
He isn’t.
I’m already good at this part of creativity, but precision is also pretty important. Right now I’m working on a project where I have to trace in pen (can’t erase, flaws are obvious) photographs that I took. Letting things go won’t help here.
I already do meditate.
I’m not, sorry.
Swing classes are pretty good about letting either gender learn to follow, if you’d like.
As a lead, you learn that you aren’t really controlling much of anything in Salsa either. You’re setting boundary conditions; follows have a fascinating way of exploring the space of those boundaries in ways you often don’t expect.
But I’m guessing that you’ve hit on the right direction of interpretation of sloppiness as letting go of control. I’d extend that to too much self conscious control. Great art, and particularly great dancing, is finding a clear intention and a method of focusing your discursive consciousness and voluntary attention that harnesses the rest* of your capabilities for the same intention.
When the self monitoring person in your head tries to do too much, he gets in the way of the rest of you doing it right.
For advanced dancing that’s true. For beginners, not so much. At the beginning Salsa is the guy leading a move and the woman following.
If you are a guy and want to learn dancing for the sake of letting go control I wouldn’t recommend Salsa. I think it took me 1 1⁄2 years to get to that point.
A whole 1 1⁄2 years? Took me a lot longer than that. I’ve been at Salsa mainly for about a decade.
Yes, the unfortunate fact is that most leads are taught to “lead moves” when they start. If they were taught to lead movement, they’d make faster progress, IMO. Leading should be leading, to the point of manipulation, and not signaling a choreographed maneuver. I’ve seen a West Coast instructor teach a beginning class that way, and thought it was the best beginning class I had ever seen.
I think on of the turning events was for me my first Bachata Congress in Berlin. I didn’t know too many Bachata patterns and after hours of dancing the brain just switches off and let’s the body do it’s thing.
But you are right that it might well take longer for the average guy. That means it’s not a good training exercise to pick up the skill of letting go control for man.
For woman on the other hand it’s something to be learned at the beginning.
At the beginning I mainly thought I didn’t understand what teaching dance is all about and that a bunch of teachers have something like real expertise.
The more I dance the more I think that their teaching is very suboptimal. A local Salsa teacher teaches mainly patterns in her lessons. On the other hand she writes on her blog about how it’s all in the technique and about traits like confidence. It’s also not like she didn’t learn dance at formal dance university courses for 5 years, so she should know a bit.
Things like telling a guy who dances with a bit of distance to the girl to dance closer, just aren’t good advice when the girl isn’t comfortable with dancing closer. Yes, if they would dance closer things would be nicer, but there usually a reason why a pair has the distance it has.
Manipulation is an interesting choice of words. What do you mean with it?
I remember a Kizomba dance a year ago where I didn’t know much Kizomba. I did have a lot of partner perception from Bachata. I picked up enough information from my dance partner that I could just follow her movements in a way where she didn’t thought she was leading but I was certainly dancing a bunch of steps with her I hadn’t learned in a lecture.
To use sort of what “manipulation” means in osteopathy I think you could call that nonmanipluative leading. In Bachata I think there are a lot of situation where a movement is there in the body but surpressed and things get good if they lead can “free” the movement and stabilize it. I think such nonmanipulative dancing is quite beautiful.
Unfortunately I’m not good enough to do that in Salsa and even in Bachata I’m not always having good enough perception.
That seems related with the common observation that it’s easier to speak a foreign language when drunk than when sober: in the latter case I feel I’m so worried of saying something grammatically incorrect that I end up speaking in very simple sentences and very haltingly. (And the widespread use of drugs among rock musicians is well-known.)
If other people working the same craft have managed to achieve precision, it’s very unlikely to be a biological limit, right? The resolution of human fine motor skills is really high.
You didn’t mention what the craft was or the nature of the sloppiness, but have you considered using simple tools to augment technical skills? Perhaps a magnifying glass, rulers. pieces of string/clay or other suitably shaped objects to guide the hand, etc?
You could try doing something that gives immediate feedback for sloppiness, like simple math problems for example. You might gain some generalizable insight like that speed affects sloppiness. Since you already practice meditation, it should be easier to become aware of the specific failure modes that contribute to sloppiness, which doesn’t seem to be a well defined thing in itself.