Learning in Public

You practice doing pirouettes for hours every night in your bedroom. This is tricky, because you have a small bedroom and there are many glass animal decorations around you. When you began, you could barely get around once without kicking something. You broke your grandmothers Hummel figurine set early on, but now you’re positively whirling every night, getting better and better. Or so you imagine.

But no one else will ever see your improvement, no one else will see the surplus of grace you develop over time, or the hilarious missteps you take at the beginning. No one will see your work and, without feedback, there is not only no way to improve past a certain point, but you are also foregoing the absolute thrill of standing bravely in front of someone and showing your own vulnerability and invulnerability at the same time.

Learning an art is almost always a public act. One of the reasons I post the art I make, share the songs I share, play concerts and write novels is to improve at what I do. I want to develop as an artist in all directions, and development means creating over and over and over again, while standing up for the work that is the best you can do at any given moment. How do you get better? Practice. How do you hold yourself to your highest standards? Learn in public.

There are lots of other ways to refer to learning in public, but I prefer to think of what I do as performance. Haha. I’m a performance artist. Now there’s something that I never thought I’d say about myself. I perform my songs, yes, but I also consider writing a novel to be a performance as well. The same with showing my paintings. Performance isn’t useful when it’s all about self-aggrandizement. It’s not look what I can do, it’s here’s what I am working on in this moment.

I used to wait until a new record came out to perform a new song. I’m not sure why, except that I thought that they were perfect only once they were on record. For the last decade or so, though, I’ve been far happier playing big batches of new songs for folks at a time. In performing them, I am learning in public about the new material I’ve written; what I want to change, what just needs more time, and what I got right the first time.

One of the best things about making art for yourself is that no one can fire you. You can take every risk, fail again and again to achieve your fullest vision, but no one is going to tell you to stop except yourself. Creativity can bring you great happiness, but only if you’re willing to develop and change and continue to surprise and entertain yourself. The most consistent way that I’ve found to achieve all these things for myself is through making sure that I am always trying to learn in public. When I perform, by singing, painting or writing, I am holding myself to account by doing my very best, while knowing that the act itself will force change upon me and I will learn.

I hope this helps!