“Skill” and “Talent”

I like this piece of art. The poster said that it took them about 10 days to make it working a few hours a day. While I have no doubt the person making this has skill and talent, with a little extra time someone could make a template from a picture of an elephant and some filters in photoshop and then use that to cut this out.

At an estimated 30 hours of time, I don’t know many people who would have that kind of patience, dedication and perseverance to cutting this all out.

It’s easy to get caught up in “skill” and “talent” when it’s much more likely it’s perseverance and dedication that are missing.

P.S. Plenty of people who saw this at an art show would say, “You’re so talented. I really like this! How much?” And then balk if the artist tried to charge $750 for a reasonable hourly rate of $25/hr. It’s likely those are the same people who think this is a work of skill alone, rather than perseverance and you’re trying to take advantage. If you’re an artist, your job is to find those who don’t think that way. Don’t worry, just keep persevering to find the right customers too.