Self-Taught or Not?

For the longest time I had considered myself "self-taught," and it was out of honesty, pride, and even humility that I made that statement. I didn't have a degree in art or much formal training, and the little formal training I did have did not make significant changes to my existing abilities. But this outlook changed after I picked up my college diploma last summer. I could no longer in truth say I didn't have an art education, even if most of my skills were acquired before the formal instruction. That left me wondering "Am I still self-taught? Was I ever self-taught in actuality?"

Contemplation of such a concept led me to evaluate what I had learned at university, what I had known before then, and how I had learned each of the skills and lessons that I employ so regularly. In this introspection I decided that no one is truly self-taught. More appropriately, we are either self-guided or formally-taught. Perhaps that is just arguing semantics, but I think it is a more accurate statement that affords added honesty.

Being "self-taught" makes it sound like one had no outside influences and learned everything entirely on their own as if they had been locked in a room with paint, brushes, and canvas figuring out what colors make other colors, how to draw shapes, etc. That is nobody's reality. We were all taught the language we speak, and we were all taught the skills we possess, and art is indeed a language as it is a way of expression.

Think about how we learn language. Our parents help us shape sounds into words. Later, this is refined in school. We begin to learn slang from our peers, and invent our own phrases and references based on our personal and cultural experiences. In higher education, we are taught how to present arguments and clarify our language so it is more easily understood by others... We don't start babbling one day and teach ourselves our native tongue the next. We may seek out exploration on our own, but we are also trained by being assessed, corrected, challenged, and introduced by many outside influences. If you are someone who has acquired most of what you know without the help of formal training that's incredible, but you most likely learned each piece from somewhere either consciously or not. Some of what I have discovered for my own experience is...

• My father taught me how to prepare my masonite boards, clean my brushes, and open gummed up old paint tubes. 
• Following along with Bob Ross taught me brush strokes.
• Intuition taught me the "golden triangle," and something else (don't remember what) taught me it is called the "golden triangle." 
• Observation and my own grade school doodles taught me perspective, but art school refined it. 
• Trial and error taught me too many things to name.
• The art academy oil painting class taught me I hate using course bristle brushes, that you have to be careful about toxicity, and that holding a brush toward the end reduces hand fatigue. 
• State school taught me that I know myself, but I also need to shut up and just try something, and to keep at it even if it's frustrating. 
• Experience has taught me that yes, quality of materials does matter, but there is a margin of diminishing returns as well. 
• An inherited creative streak taught me to keep trying. 
• Self acceptance and peer support taught me that there is nothing wrong with creating what I love and have passion for, regardless of what mainstream media or the over-inflated egos of big city critics might have to say. 
• Music taught me rhythm, and that it's okay to not confine yourself to one style if you're capable of more; to explore feeling, not popularity, and to not abandon who you are inside. 
• History has given me inspiration and the technology of better and easily accessed materials.

I didn't teach myself the skills acquired outside of school. Instead, I consciously made choices to guide myself towards experiences that would support my goals as a creative. I sought out or accepted individual experiences that gave me a piecemeal, informal education.

With all that being said, yes, I believe there are people out there who are genuinely self-taught, who have this innate savant-like ability that most don't possess. But I'm sure if they were to think about it, they would discover the sources of their skill as well, or at least outside influences that helped them improve their art. For example, I didn't learn pencil drawing from anyone. I literally just picked up a mechanical pencil, sketch paper, and a photograph one day and let my brain create whatever it could. However, I did learn additional techniques from external sources later on, which improved my abilities, and I'm not sure I would have discovered them on my own. Getting instruction from others fast-tracks learning and progress.

What I am trying to say is this. All the little bits and pieces, the experiences and lessons we acquire result in the artists we become, and I think it is just a wee bit arrogant to say we are self-taught as that diminishes the influence the world has had on us. We are not beings hatched from a sterile environment and let out into the universe without any influences. We are products of nature and nurture. We make our choices and guide our path based on what inspires us within and without.

I know that using the term "self-taught" will continue to have the most effect on communicating whether we were formally trained or not; it's not likely to go out of use any time soon. But if I'm being as honest as I can be, I am "self guided" in my abilities: they are a mix of natural, acquired, and instructed skills learned from a variety of sources, all culminating into the work I create with them.