The Wisdom of Knowing You Don’t Know Very Much

I had a great awakening years ago that has served me well ever since.  I was 24 and had been out of the Navy for a year and had just enrolled in art school at The University of Tennessee.  I was a typical young person, very confident in my environment.  This confidence stemmed mainly from two sources.  My ability to draw gave me confidence I was well on my way to being an artist and the tendency of all young people to believe in their own mastery of the understanding of their world.  My painting Professor, Tom Resling, had taken us to a gallery.  We were standing in front of a very large painting of three vertical grey stripes.  I was not impressed.  As he began to talk about the work I raised my hand and made, what I felt was a very astute comment, not only on the work before me but in contemporary art in general.  I said, “I can do that!”  Mr. Resling hesitated a moment and then gave me a severe public dressing down beginning with, “No you can’t because the artist already has, yours would be a copy…”  He then went on to explain things about art, contemporary art, and the art world that I had never heard much less thought of.  I learned two things standing before that painting, #1 I didn’t know very much and #2 I was in the right place.  Since that moment I haven’t learned a great deal in comparison to how much there is to know but when you’re smart enough to know you don’t know a lot you’re half way home to being wise enough to be taught some of it.  

After Richard Long