Be Curious, not…

Almost now a staple in modern popular culture, the darts scene in Ted Lasso (Apple Original Series) sees the protagonist give a monologue about curiosity…

“Guys have underestimated me my entire life and for years I never understood why – it used to really bother me. But then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw a quote by Walt Whitman, it was painted on the wall and it said, ‘Be curious, not judgmental.’ I like that. (Throws triple 20). So I get back in my car and I’m driving to work and all of the sudden it hits me – all them fellas that used to belittle me, not a single one of them was curious. You know, they thought they had everything figured out so they judged everything and they judged everyone. And I realised that their underestimating me – who I was had nothing to do with it. Because if they were curious they would have asked questions. Questions like, ‘Have you played a lot of darts, Ted?’ (Throws triple 20). To which I would have answered, “Yes sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from aged 10 until I was 16 when he passed away. Barbecue sauce. (Throws triple bullseye to win).”

Great scene from a great show. However, there is an issue about the ‘Be curious, not judgemental’ quote, it was a misattribution to Walt Whitman. Whitman scholars cannot find this piece of advice in any of his oeuvre. Whether or not this was a deliberate or unintentional part of the Lasso script, I find the quote interesting regardless of who originally penned it.

Be curious, not judgemental.

Those four words have been rattling around inside my head ever since I first heard it. Short, succinct, relatable. Thinking about my own art practice, I can fully identify with the sentiments of the monologue above. Firstly, the feeling of being underestimated. We, all have the self doubts about our work, putting art out there into the world whether by exhibitions, or just on social media. I get excited when I get over 10 ‘likes’ on Instagram, but perplexed when others receive hundreds. I could be philosophical and say it is the ‘algorithm’, or paranoid about being ‘shadow banned’ for my work being in breach of ‘community standards’.

This ‘underestimation’ question has followed me through my life and art career (if you can call it that). Leaving work (real work, they would say) to attend art school at the age of 35…positive that everyone questioned that decision. The underestimation about if I could finish higher education at all when I could hardly get through high school. A folly, for sure. I still felt that doubt projected even when I finished Dux of the Campus at T.A.F.E, then through my 1st Class honours degree at university, and finally two Master degrees. I was determined to prove myself (and to myself) that I was more than my disastrous high school days though typically judged alone on that metric. Even following any success in academia, I still felt seen not by the outcomes achieved, but defined by my high school years and the original decision to leave ‘work’, to follow the artistic life.

Thus, now when I think about my own art practice, past and present (and probably future), I know it will be judged…judged not only by content, but for who I am as a person. Be it age, gender, sexual identity, race, et al, my work in part viewed through a particular prism of who I am and how I personally present. My wish is that messages, iconography, the subtext unfolding before the viewer’s eyes within my art shouldn’t become tainted, soured for who I am as a person, as a human.

Of course, I may be over-cooking the argument here and full well knowing that all art is judged by the context of the person making it…so be it. But for me, like Ted Lasso, my desire for those looking at my art is to just ‘be curious, not judgemental’.

An Abomination