The Crafty Princess Diaries

Tammy Powley’s Crafty Weblog

Crafting, Is It Talent or Skill?

| 2 Comments

Beth Peterson over at the About.com Pottery site was blogging about skill versus talent recently, and I thought this was an interesting topic to ponder. Sure, you will never be good at anything, including most arts and crafts, if you don’t take the time to practice, but is it all simply a matter of skills that you acquire? Is talent in that mix, and if so how much of how you develop as a designer is related to talent?

I tend to think it is a mixture of both, with skills being the more important of the two. You can be talented and brilliant, but if you don’t apply yourself, you’ll never achieve the same level of craft work you could if you put the time into practice. I also think most people are creative and talented; they just may not have given themselves a chance to investigate that side of their brains so to speak. I just don’t believe it when I hear people say things like, “Oh, I could never make that or do that particular craft (jewelry, crochet, knitting, mixed-media, fill-in-the-blank).” I always want to ask back, “Have you even tried?”

Author: Tammy

Welcome to the Crafty Princess Diaries, my weblog and site where I get to blab about my passion for crafts, primarily jewelry making, and my crafting career. My name is Tammy Powley, and I decided to call my blog the Crafty Princess Diaries because of this very dorky picture I have of myself and because my husband often refers to me as “the princess and the pea,” which is just another way to say that I tend to be particular sometimes. Along with this weblog, I have a number of jewelry making books published.

2 Comments

  1. Hi Tammy! I am *so* late to this party, but just found it, LOL! Skill and talent both do have a place, but just to add a little further depth here — I’ve seen incredibly talented people who have never pushed themselves to learn the skills, and so ultimately fail to reach their potential. Then I’ve also seen people who only a smidgen of talent, but who worked and worked on their skills become truly good artists!

    Having both is golden — and I wholeheartedly agree with you: I too think that most people have talent they haven’t discovered, often because they haven’t begun to try and build the skills.

  2. Hi Beth, you are still welcome to the party, even if you are a little late! Thank you for adding more food for thought here.

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