“Mastery”

Today I want to talk a little about the idea of “mastery”. I recently had a conversation where the idea of the “10,000 hour rule” came up. I think in the moment my reaction was to just think about how once you hit 10,000 hours your point of view changes and that you are always going to be pushing yourself to the idea of “mastery”.

Since the conversation I’ve kind of thought about the idea a few more times and I think I have a different perspective on the topic. I was specifically thinking about art made by kids. I had recently heard this quote and it struck me and made me laugh. “When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, 'You mean they forget?'“ (Howard Ikemoto)

I think kids art is great for many reasons.. but the 10,000 hour rule does not apply at all. So I am not sure the 10,000 hour rule is a great guideline or principal to follow or work toward.. I wonder instead if we should think of it as “Mastery" of the moment you are working in. Mastery in a new technique or skill. When I think back to being a kid and learning to draw and write those times were spent focused in the moment on moving the pencil where I wanted it to go, trying to translate an image in my head onto paper. No thought of the future, but only the moment. Maybe as we try to grow and expand our art we should stop thinking of the future and just focus on the singular moment and steps that the art calls for.