This week I’ve been thinking about the gap between skill and taste in creative work. When you’re just starting out in a creative field, it’s perfectly possible – indeed, likely – for your taste to be far more developed than your own ability. You’ve read far more books than you’ve written; you’ve seen far more films than you’ve created. You know what you like, and that’s partly why you want to create your own things.
This dynamic can lead to frustration, and even drive you to give it all up – why bother creating things, when you can’t match what’s in your head and can’t live up to your own standards? This week’s article is about that gap between skills and taste, and how it might be overcome.
This week’s article
The taste–skill gap in creative work
Many people who get into creative fields already have a highly tuned sense of taste for their chosen discipline. But this taste, rather than being an asset, often prevents them from progressing – by causing them to reject their own work as sub-standard. How do you get past that?