Working: Learning From Bad Art

Slate Culture

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For this week’s episode of Working Overtime, hosts June Thomas and Isaac Butler acknowledge the painful fact that most art is in fact pretty bad. Yet, just because the play, or painting was poorly constructed does not mean you have to scrub it from your mind. Thinking about how you might have improved the piece, or realizing it was made from a labor of love can often generate new creative ideas of your own and respect for the process. Do you have a question about creative work? Leave a message at (304) 933-9675 or email us at [email protected]. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Cameron Drews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Working Overtime, the Advice-Focused Trisket under the Aged Fine
0:13.8	Cheddar that is working.
0:16.6	I'm Isaac Butler.
0:17.8	And I'm June Thomas.
0:19.2	Isaac, what have you got for us today?
0:21.6	Well, June, this week's Working Overtime is actually inspired by something you said in
0:27.1	the last Working Overtime, which to make a long story short is about learning from, well,
0:33.8	crap.
0:34.8	You don't mean literal crap, right?
0:36.9	No June, I do not mean literal crap.
0:38.6	I mean learning from bad art.
0:41.0	Let's be honest, most art is bad, right?
0:43.5	The rule of thumb is that maybe one in ten works of art in a given field are good.
0:48.9	Far far fewer than that are great.
0:50.8	So a lot of the time when we're reading, going to museums, watching movies, whatever,
0:56.2	we're actually going to wind up experiencing is art that isn't very good.
0:59.7	That doesn't work.
1:00.7	That is in some fundamental way in bad taste or just kind of sucks.
1:05.8	It's become realizing that we might have different standards.
1:09.8	I mean, other than when I was a professional critic who had to watch and write about shows
1:14.3	whether I wanted to or not, the combination of like selecting things to experience based
1:19.6	on my interest, my expertise or the gatekeeping of arts institutions or publishers,
	...

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