Disagreed. I think everyone has the potential for creativity, it just gets scared out of us as we grow up. Teaching someone to paint or take well-structured photographs is pretty much trivial as long as they put in the effort. And once you give somebody a tool to adequately express the way they see the world, most can barely help but be creative.
It depends what you mean by 'an artist'. Consider that every one of us is constantly expressing ourselves, in unique ways and with a unique personality, in language. There's no reason you can't train someone to have similar competency to express themselves in another medium.
People who attend those 'drawing from life' courses invariably are much better by the end of it. I knew a guy who didn't have a lot of artistic flair, but he liked cars and machines. By the end of the course he was producing some really precise, great looking drawings of vehicles and engines.
If you define 'an artist' as someone who's able to move the state of the art, create bold new visions -- well, not everyone may be capable of that. But I think that's an unnecessarily narrow conception of art.
> If you define 'an artist' as someone who's able to move the state of the art, create bold new visions -- well, not everyone may be capable of that. But I think that's an unnecessarily narrow conception of art.
Agreed. I don't think you can 'train' someone to be a cultural revolutionary. Look at Stephen King, he spent virtually his entire life writing stories, the education he received only served to skip him past mistakes he would have run into and figured out by himself sooner or later.
There are however countless thousands of people out there writing nothing more than pulp fiction, entertaining people and probably only making enough cash to help put their kids through college or to pay for a nice vacation next year.
I used to play bass guitar, I used to write my own songs, I knew a few people who genuinely liked them. If I'd have put as much effort into my music as I have writing then I would probably genuinely be a musician right now, but I want to be an author because since I could talk I've been telling stories.
