Busy into the evening tonight so I thought these brief thoughts from New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, shared by Isaac Butler might be a good subject to ponder.
The no-talent has as much right to produce works as the artist has, and not only because he has a surprising way of shifting from one category to the other but also because men have an inalienable right to be untalented. (1967)
— pauline kael bot (@paulinekaelbot) March 14, 2023
This resonates with the whole Pro-Am (Professional Amateurs) conversation from the early 2000 as well as the concept that everyone has the capacity to be creative. There has always been a tension between the idea that insiders are gatekeeping the definition of who is an artist/creative and the concept that one should be investing time and energy into honing their abilities if they sincerely want to cultivate their creativity.
Kael notes that the untrained/no-talent has a capacity to verge off in interesting directions while having the freedom of producing something perfectly awful. The two states are not mutually exclusive since the germ of something interesting and inspired can be hidden amid the dross.