One thing I find helpful for young artists is to read about artists who are the place that they want to be, and seeing what kind of trials and experiments they went through. You obviously don’t want to blatantly imitate them, but it is reassuring to know that they’ve been the through the same things a young, aspiring artist has been through.

I think the issue I was trying to address was the need to uncover the mechanics of art. So if I confront a work through trial and error, I need to be able to derive principles of technique and expression from that attempt.

I guess I don’t care ‘how’ I’m learning about the particular expression, just as long as I am learning. The end goal is to achieve excellence in the work.

While the development and mastery of particular techniques may be desirable as adding tools to the artist’s toolbox, there is also something desirable about the breaking of new ground and the development of new techniques by the artist.

Trial and error can sometimes be just as informative as education and correction. Most call it the ‘school of hard knocks’. And lessons learned like that are not quickly forgot.

I do concede that the foundational understanding of everything that brought the artist to this point will prove invaluable in his exploration of new artistic territory.