When I was pregnant with my son, I decided to research what set successful people apart. Moreover, I wanted to know what their moms did to raise these geniuses, business tycoons, statesmen, sports stars and other leaders in their fields. Obviously, I was only searching out people who were revered, not people whose seemingly successful exploits meant death, destruction and hardship for many others.

This was in the days before the Internet, so my research revolved around reading biographies and autobiographies, especially of the formative years of these accomplished folk.

Overwhelmingly, I discovered one attribute that successful scientists, statesmen, business leaders, people in the arts and so forth all share. They are willing, even eager to lose more than people who are only moderately successful (or less). Winners excel at losing. They know how to lose and lose well.

For instance, back then Babe Ruth held the record for the most home runs, but he also held the record for the most strike outs. Edison, the Wright brothers and most other great inventors saw failure as positive feedback that would point them towards the correct understanding.

Winners and great achievers not only have a higher tolerance for failure – they embrace it! Failure is seen as a step along the path, or even multiple failures are embraces as steps along the path to the ultimate achievement of one's goals. Failure – striking out – becomes a positive learning experience. The Wright brothers fully believed Mankind could fly; it was only a question of discovering how . They learned from every failed attempt. They were not afraid to fail in an attempt.

There was a time, in my artistic path, back in high school when I thought I was really going to fail on an assignment. My whole class agreed that I should have failed.

However, I was blessed by having a brilliant art teacher, Mr. Bertram Katz. He is absolutely partly responsible for my being here today as the founder of an art theory and emerging movement. Mr. Bertram Katz taught me to never be afraid to fail if I do my best, even if my best is horrid.

In my senior year at the famous High School of Music and Art, Mr. Katz finally gave us an assignment to paint whatever we wanted, in our own style, in our own way. Heretofore, for over two years, I had received grades that were A plus, even a hundred on any art assignment. I worked hard, because art mattered greatly to me, plus I was and am blessed with art talent (one of my few talents), which helped my art endeavors. Ask me to paint a still life that is set up, paint a fellow student model, a landscape, whatever and I was happily busy and actually did a good job while working hard.. Teach me a style, such as Cubism and ask me to render a work in that style and I could do it well.

While the assignment to finally paint in our own style, anything we wanted was met with enthusiasm by all the other students, I felt it was the worst assignment I ever heard. Years of wandering thorough the great museums and galleries in NYC on my own taught me that I did not have my own style. I could duplicate the masters, but who needed that?

Art was important to me. The works of so many of the masters in the museums had reached me and given me a different view of the world. I wanted to be like them and contribute. But, I was seventeen years old and fumbling to find myself and who I was.

I had this idea of painting pictures that told a story, but were not narrative, and yet conveyed a reality that is beneath that we normally see. I knew I wanted to do this and had absolutely no idea of how to do it. I had tried to create paintings by painting the atoms, that would somehow end up looking like a still life or landscape, but my previous attempts (at home) had ended up as general mess, as either the idea of the atoms was lost to the still life or the whole thing ended looking a lot like mud and chaos.

I am usually a bubbly enthusiastic person and am especially happily engaged while painting. I even sometimes hum or sign while painting and always have. With this assignment I moved to a corner of the classroom, stared at my pure white canvas and brooded. I was lost.

Mr. Katz walked through the classroom as usual looking at our efforts. Looking back forty something years later I am sure he never expected to find me staring at a blank canvas while brooding in abject misery. I was one of his star pupils and the buzz in the halls was that I might actually make it in the art world. Yet, there I was hiding in the corner.

I do not recall if it was a one or two week assignment, but I suspect it was two weeks as we were working with oil paint for about an hour and a half a day, a double period.

On the first day I pretended to be simply thoughtful, but by the second day when I had not managed to make a single mark on my canvas Mr. Katz inquired as to what was going on. I had paint on my palette and a brush in my hand but nothing to show on the canvas.

I saw Mr. Katz as an authority figure. Looking back with my now adult wisdom he certainly knew that I respected him and wanted to please him. My girl friend and I had given up all of our lunch breaks for two years to “volunteer” for a guidance counselor so that we could create our schedules with our favorite teachers, most especially including Mr. Katz. He was not an easy teacher and also not an easy grader, but if one cared greatly about art as I did, he was a great teacher. My friend and I were two of his pets, simply because we cared about art and did our best. 

Day two Mr. Katz inquired gently as to what is going on with me as if he suspected I had had a death in the family. He had two years of watching me quickly get to work and suddenly, I am hiding in the corner staring wretchedly at a blank canvas. And my angst at the assignment began to pour out.

Over the course of the assignment he spent a great deal of time with me listening, just listening as I poured out my tearful (I actually had tears almost daily running down my cheeks, which I embarrassedly wiped away lest my classmate see them) frustration.

We were slogging through the woes of the Vietnam War. I felt I needed to address the carnage of war and bring a vision of peace and hope through art or writing. I wanted to paint the spiritual and real reality that lay beneath what we saw. I spoke of atoms that become molecules and objects, but I had previously, on my own tried to paint tiny atoms to form a realistic scene and had learned that only made a mess on a canvas. It was far too complicated unless a work was possibly billboard size or even larger. I fussed over whether to be a writer or artist as they seemed intertwined to me, yet it seemed that on a practical level I should choose only one. Somehow I wanted to write as an artist making images, but I had no idea how to accomplish my idea then, or that in the future scientific and technologically new materials would provide me with missing information and tools.

My misery and angst at finding my way as an artist and human being was apparent. I poured out my story of how the great artists had impacted and changed my life and that I wanted to paint like them. I described great paintings and what I had seen and learned from them. I quietly wept and struggled. I held up my brush and could not figure what to paint. I searched my heart for my own artistic “voice” and got nowhere. Actually, Mr. Katz encouraged me not to paint until I was ready. I argued that I had to paint something and he told me not to paint until I knew what I wanted to do.

I sat in a corner, silently cried and brooded at a blank canvas for two weeks, only interrupted by visits from Mr. Katz who listened intently as I spoke of my frustration to create something worthy being real art. He continued to listen intently as I wrestled with who I was as an artist.

Mr. Katz continued to encouraged me to find my way and to wait until I knew what I wanted to do. The assignment was to paint what I wanted in my own style. Only, I did not have a style and I had no idea of what to paint except that I wanted to reach other people the way the great artists like Rembrandt, van Gogh, Dali, El Greco and others had reached me. There was a war, so much suffering and yet also so much beauty in the world, how could I meaningfully address this through art?

I remember that it was a Friday when we had to hand in our canvases. The other students were completing their works. Mine was still blank. I was panicked and felt nauseous. It was obvious that I had nothing to turn in for the assignment. I had utterly failed.

The other students were all happily handing in their works. They had had an enjoyable week painting whatever they wanted how ever they wanted. How easy an assignment was that?

It was an assignment I was going to fail. Not only was I going to fail (and be in trouble at home) but it would create a problem in my artistic grade average and I was heading to a college art school

Mr. Katz told me to hand in my canvas, even though it was totally blank. At this point I was not going to argue, but I do remember informing him that it was blank, but even so he ordered me to “Hand it in!” Did I mention he had a temper?

I put my name on the stretcher back and handed it in. It was an awful moment I remember as if it were today. Some of the other students snickered at me or made comments to each other.

I also recall spending the weekend in dread and even more misery. When my Dad asked me about school I informed him of my plight. He was astonished that I had not just handed in something for the sake of getting a grade. He thought I should have compromised rather than fail. My Dad was a good man but he hated the idea of failing. He preferred making compromises and passing along in comfort.

The next week Mr. Katz gave us back our canvases and gave us our grades. I remained in dread as the grades were given out. The other kids looked at me and snickered at what was to come.

Mr. Katz handed me my blank canvas with the grade of A+. I did not have a chance to be perplexed as there was an immediate outcry from the other students who had received lesser grades.

Mr. Katz replied that I worked harder at the assignment than all of them and actually fulfilled it. The assignment was to paint whatever we wanted in our own style. He also reminded the students that he was the teacher and could assign the grades as he saw fit. I still felt like a failure. I used to think he was kind to me. I have since grown up as a person and artist and learned that Mr. Katz was correct.

I actually had fully completed the assignment to paint whatever I wanted in my own style. I had no idea what my own style was or what I wanted to paint. I only knew that art was important and hopefully, some day I could contribute my share. I had completed the assignments and done it honestly, even though it appeared that I had failed.

Mr. Katz had urged me not to compromise. He actually not only urged me to fail but taught me that failure could lead to success. It was an awesome lesson, not only in art but in life.

March 27, 2006

Many years, I completed the assignment yet again. I began to experiment with using symbols for the strokes in a painting to represent the smallest essences of the physical universe, the pre-matter/energy that elementary physicists call strings of branes. This led me to the realization that Post Conceptual Art, the next step, is using symbols for strokes to form narrative imagery. My art work uses a specific set that are the world's only binary, phonic and alpha-numeric symbols. These are the Torah font Hebrew letters that are used in the Bible and other religious texts. Using those symbol-strokes creates a subset or branch of Post Conceptual art that I call UnGraven Image. To learn more download the free booklet, Manifesto of Post Conceptual UnGraven Image Art Theory - A Painting's Meaning is Inherent in its Strokes in PDF format.

Bertram Katz is a recognized artist who also now teaches art at NYU's Gallatin school. He found me through this and another blog.