Travis's essay

Are Artists Born With Talent, Or Do They Develop It

Travis 12/20/06

My question is: are artists born with talent, or do they develop it? I think this is a very good, but hard question. In fact, I think it is even un-answerable.

When we were in Boston, we went to two museums. One of which was a museum of modern art, and one had things like old paintings, mummies, Chinese art, and Egyptian art. Looking at this was fun, but didn’t get my any closer to answering my un-answerable question, because we were just seeing the work of already successful people. We also went and saw theaters, and how they were set up and run. The people who did this were obviously talented, or they wouldn’t be where they are now. Once again, this was fun and very interesting, but it didn’t help me answer my question.

The only thing I saw that helped me with my question was when we were walking from place to place. Walking from the hostel that we stayed at, to a museum, or a place to eat food, or whatever we were doing, I saw lots of poor and homeless people playing instruments. Some of them were just funny, but some of them were actually very talented. Although this doesn’t really help me answer my question, it got me thinking. These people have never had any professional music lessons, but yet they are still very talented. These people are more talented than a lot of the famous musicians these days, and that got me thinking that maybe you are born with it.

Many of the famous musicians these days have almost no talent at all, but have had many music lessons. And homeless people are out playing them with a poorly made instrument, which have never had any lessons at all. That’s when I started thinking, that to be famous you don’t need to be talented, as much as know people. If you are rich, or you have famous family members, it is a lot easier to get famous, than if u are an extremely talented homeless person with no connections at all.

I think this was my original opinion. My theory is that you are born with talent, and lessons can help you whether you are born with talent or not, but no matter how many lessons you have, if you born with no talent, you will never be that good.