Where truly all are welcome
Who wants to kill two birds with one stone? For all the good and happiness we get to spread around Edmonds through the arts, there’s always something nagging at us: folks who don’t think they’ve got what it takes to be an artist(1). Whether that’s because of misconceptions about art, lacking space or community to be creative, or not having access to materials to work with, ARTspot may have just the solution for you!
The No Talent Art Club started as a joke I thought only its creator(2) would find funny. I chalked up a sidewalk sign and later a custom sticker urging people to “Join the No-Talent Art Club(3).” I didn’t expect passerby to then come in the store and ask how they could join the club(4). Two years later we’ve actually been able to make it a reality! Details to follow.
When new folks are being trained at ARTspot, one of the archetypical customers I advise them to keep an eye out for are the survivors of creative trauma(5). We’re oftentimes the first point of contact for someone who may be peeking over the trench for the first time in years or even decades and I think we’re pretty good at getting people over the top to pick out their first pencil. The second step, however, is far more daunting: practice.
Practicing something you’re not skilled at can be tedious(6) at best. At worst it can be a downright humiliating experience without the right environment and community in a bubble around you. For years that was something we couldn’t offer people, especially if they don’t have the resources or ability to pay for an expensive class or an in-home studio. Spaces where folks can hang out without a required financial transaction(7) are far and few between. That’s particularly true for kids. Folks who’re new to a skill need people around who can encourage, point out the good aspects of their work, and offer advice as requested. At the very least, newcomers to a skill need people around they can trust not to tear them down.
Stick all that in a pot, stir it around, and we get the actual No Talent Art Club(8)! It’s a weekly event at ARTspot after regular business hours every Friday. The event encourages people from all walks of life(9) to hang out, make some art, try something new, and generally just practice the skill of creativity. When tedious repetition(10) is the best, tangible way to improve a skill, the best way to set yourself up for success is to try and make the repetition a little bit fun(11)! Surrounding yourself with friends, watching some old art TV shows, and removing the burden of financial stress(12) from the situation is our attempt to encourage everyone to engage with their creative selves.
At this point, the No Talent Art Club has been running for about two months and is going strong(13). We generally have a good crowd of folks who've returned from previous weeks as well as first-timers. I’ve seen people work on papercrafting, spend their time blending watercolors, practice their dollmaking, work on commissions, or just play with pencils and paper. I’m usually playing trash legos or touching up the paint on my skates behind the counter if it’s a more crowded night, but on quieter Fridays I like to sit out with y’all and gab while I play. Folks can bring their own projects, play with the pencils and paper we have around, or rent from our art materials library(14). We hope to see you there soon!
(1) A good artist, a bad artist, or even just an artist who enjoys making a mess that makes them happy!
(2) That’s me.
(3) “All art is good art! Make Bad Art! Disappoint your Family!”
(4) At the time, I’d just tell people they were probably already secretly a member and were doing a great job. These interactions were portentous, however.
(5) It’s nothing too overtly dramatic, but it’s very common for us to help out folks who have dealt with really negative feedback about their art from mentors and peers very early on in life. Even if they avoided these direct interactions, there’s certainly an omnipresent cultural weirdness surrounding creativity. If you’re not somehow identified as “gifted” or “talented” from the get-go then you’ll “never amount to anything.” The thing that blows my mind is that there aren’t many other skills that fall into this trap. We don’t expect a small child who’s bad at sports, math, or science to be skilled without practice. Nobody starts off as Lionel Messi, Ada Lovelace, or Marie Curie, but with practice people can get pretty good at mostly anything.
(6) A word my mom taught me and my sister circa age four or five in regards to practicing our drawing skills.
(7) I went down a big rabbit hole a few months back about Third Places and how they’re vanishing. That’s what really kicked me in the butt to start putting resources and energy towards this whole endeavor. A Third Place is somewhere people can congregate to share ideas, socialize, or otherwise just hang out without spending a lot of money. Third Places tend not to make a lot of money because of this, so unless they’re subsidized and loved by the communities they serve these places tend to disappear.
(8) We often abbreviate it to NTAC on the back end of the store because it’s a lot of words. I neither love nor hate this abbreviation, but it doesn’t quite spark joy for me. That’s the way things go when you don’t name a thing backwards to have an intentionally cute abbreviation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(9) We chose the time slot for this event kinda carefully to line up with some of the few buses that run through downtown Edmonds. There’s only so much we can do to encourage accessibility, but we’ll do what we can! If there’s a barrier that’s keeping you from coming by that we might have overlooked and could help with, let us know! We’ll see what we can do.
(10) This is genuinely how I’ve gotten good at any kind of art I’m ok at now as a thirty year old. People don’t like to hear that I’d spend a day in college with a ream of paper drawing the same thing 500 times. People want to hear that I’m the descendant of an ancient bloodline of artists and was born with a pencil in my hand (ouch!).
(11) It’s the same thing as having a tv show on or music playing when you’re lifting weights. Nobody (I think) is all like “ahh cool, yes, lifting this metal rock over and over again is SO FUN and ENGAGING.” Throw on some good tunes though, get in the groove, and you realize that a few months have gone by and you’re lifting way bigger metal rocks than before. It’s a bit of a crude comparison, but getting good at art is basically just the same. If you’re not happy with what you’re making, try a new material, emulate a different artist, and follow whatever is the most fun. Practice, and you will get better.
(12) i.e. “I’ve paid X amount of dollars, so I have to be Y amount better or get Z amount of fun out of this or I’m wasting my monopoly money.”
(13) My fiancé (appropriately) gets after me for not promoting the No Talent Art Club with enough spirit, but I’m expecting this blog post will meet that expectation. Love you!
(14) On a sliding scale! We had a lot of these materials donated from our community, or had just been sitting in our basement gathering dust, so we ask for $5-15 or whatever more you can throw our way to help keep the lights on. If you don’t have that, anything helps. Our primary goal is just to help y’all access some new, fun materials!