That's the Secret

~ by Robert Genn

The other day I happened to be paying a visit to one of my galleries. I noticed a guy moving slowly along a wall - his nose almost dragging on the paintings. “He’s an art student— comes in here all the time,” said the dealer. “He’s studying every artist and trying to figure out their secrets.” The guy was making notes, lost in his own world.

On the way back to my studio, music turned up real loud, I realized that if someone had an invention, or had developed a new cure for something, the first thing they might do was to head for the patent office. But it’s difficult to patent a style. A clever lab technician could certainly grind up and reverse engineer a new pill, but, as that fellow in the gallery was finding, it’s difficult to grind out the real secrets in someone else’s work.

I’m a believer that every one of us has the right and the responsibility to create something that is a bit unique—to develop a look that may be somewhat private and difficult for others to unravel. With all the permutations and combinations possible, I also think there will always be enough uniqueness to go around.

While secrets can sometimes be fairly clear and on the surface, at most times they’re mysteriously subtle. For the artist-inventor who discovers them, they are often hard won.

They appear by a variety of means. These include the order in which work is built, the process and execution, reference methods, self-crit techniques, personal mythology, learned and inherited tendencies, attitude, and a host of other factors like palette, equipment, format, lighting, etc. More than anything, secrets have to do with personal habits and the conscious or unconscious prejudices of the worker. Repetition plays its part and is a valuable contributor.

An outsider, cruising a wall of art, is stuck with the problem of getting into someone else’s skin.

For those of us who regularly toil at art, it’s clear that glimmers of secrets regularly flit before our eyes. Like butterflies, they need to be netted and examined. This evolved "knowledge" is what electrifies and inspires the better artists--and puts a mark of distinction on their art. Knowing something special, something a bit different, even hazily, means you can claim it. That's the secret.