I've studied with three painters in my life and read many "how to" books. Two of these painters are considered "gurus". by some.
From one I learned about paint, mixing, color. The other I learned about expression, design, concepts and ideas. And the Third is myself, being the most influential of all. The first two gave me the tools, I am the one who teachers myself the most every day. I consider we are all self taught or we should be once we accomplish the basics.

p.s. I'm not sure the new "mathguard" system is working any better. It won't take my addition. I still have to re-enter things two or three times.

It's been a few months since I got to know Charles Reid's work and teachings. Just like his direct painting method, his teaching is also directly talks to a student's mind. I am just writing to say thank you Charles, you are simply fabulous. Best wishes from India.

Guru?...This is a word I use to get a meaning as days go..

My mentor was Graham Sutherland, he helped me a great deal when I was young. He noticed that I was using very cheap materials and not getting what I wanted from them, so he gave me a credit note of £50 to Robersons, his art supplier in London. £50 was a lot of money in 1969. He died in 1980 aged 76, he was a wonderful man and a great artist.

When I was young (a long time ago), I was often treated to phrases like "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." How much truth there is in that adage I only realized much later. Whatever one is trying to master, it is useful if the teacher, tutor, guru knows the ropes and can also prove it, not just by flourishing a paintbrush (or other piece of equipment), but by structuring the demonstration or workshop, by astutely recognizing what is needed at that time and then providing it. Most experiences I have had involved the "guru" doing his own thing, repeating a routine, regardless of its appropriateness. And of course, people who came because they admire, respect and even love that "guru", swallow it all, however sham it is.
There are, for example, myriads of phoney voice teachers, one or two of whom I experienced at first hand as a student I later tried to rehabilitate victims of bad teaching in my own guise as a teacher.
The problem is that people don't ask (themselves) enough, or maybe just not the right questions! Just because someone is up there claiming to be an expert, it doesn't mean he is an expert. So much "artistic" work is purely intuitive. A lot of teaching is based on final stages of a long process of development. But the student doesn't need the tricks of the trade anything like as much as he needs the basic skills, the chance to develop.
I suppose it's symptomatic of today's culture that learning has to go at the rate of knots, like the hamburger machine at a fast food emporium.
When I was still singing, I did performances with a small city opera conducted by a guy who was actually the head of music in that area, but whose whole "knowledge" of conducting was based on a workshop he had once done with Herbert von Karajan. His conducting was absolutely catastrophic. He hadn't even learnt that a conductor leads rather than follows the orchestra.
That opens up another problem. The "guru" is not responsible for the students. Each student is responsible for himself. As Rick Rotante points out, it's the autodidactic learning that really counts!
In voice, the results of bad teaching are often physical ruin. At least that doesn't happen in painting!

In music, if you want to improve your own skills, you listen to those of the masters; if you are a writer, you read; if you are a painter, you can do worse than look at great paintings. There are plenty of them out there!

Of course, the internet has encouraged the proliferation of gurus. The latest group are those who wish to coach "creativity". I joined one of these groups, not for the coach, but because periodically, when floundering about in the studio, I'll participate in a group project and it helps me screw my head back on straight. I like your form of guru-ship, because you tend to provide fodder for further thought.

Ive worked in nearly every capacity as an artist since my early teens and that's all I do. great thought and .letter about gurus which I consicer myself to be Ive ambeled into many worlds, from painting to carpentry.Im a versatile artist. what I've done..mens and womens fashion ill.paste-ups, water and oil gilcing, portrait work, wax modeling, and I work in pastels, watercolor, oils, gouach and egg tempera

My "art book closet" is crammed to the rafters with a various assortment of art books and magazines. I have a book by Charles Reid that I constantly refer to when the going gets tough. His simplicity and brilliance are naturally stunning to say the least and I never tire of his beautifully honest work. My favorite book by Charles Reid is "Flower Painting in Oil", first published in 1976. Many of the illustrated paintings in the book are black and white, to see the value of color. The book includes of black and white photo of Charles as a handsome young man of about 25? standing in a very rugged "paint chipping off the walls", studio barn. He is proudly hanging on to the side of a 5' x5' (oh so beautiful) painting, with a brush in the other hand resting on his hip. Thank you Charles Reid for the inspiration and hope you have given so many artists. I love your work and aspire to create as you do, with my own artistic voice in a subtle brilliant manner. God willing, I still have many years to get there, but I'm never satisfied. Isn't that the point?

Wow. When I started reading this one, I began to wonder if I were one of the "gurus" and if that would be good or bad. I do advise art committees, artists and students. I write about art, artists and the art market every month for our community here in Colorado. But I think the guru thing is clear: nonsense and mediocrity reveal themselves at some point. The sad part is that sometimes the flash and glitz catch the attention of the would-be art practitioner just as advertisements catch the "novelty brain" for the short term. Most likely those with a long term interest in art will continue to seek long term, and grow in discernment as well. Then again, some seekers just like that seeking practice as amusement. They are the window shoppers of the art world... and yet, the combined experiences should provide some discernment for them, too. It is just soooo much faster to "see" well when exposed to creative and masterful minds in art.

First I want to thank Robert for being my guru for over the past three years. I made it a point of reading all the letters he wrote, (it took three years because we moved to a home on five wooded acres, and I survived level three colon cancer and chemo).

I learned so much from these letters, the most important for me is to have one style, also correct pricing, and to get another dog.

I taught adult watercolor classes for over 10 years, quit teaching because it was hindering my personal artistic growth (wanting to paint abstracts in acrylics).
I have over 200 art instruction books, my favorites are Turner, Parish, Monet, and Picasso, in that order and hopefully my new works will somewhat reflect their art.

Most of my life was spent in Cleveland Ohio (also living in LA Calif in the seventies, NYNY, western NC. and ending up in San Antonio Texas), I have been in many art groups. The last one in Cleveland was so unproductive a alsmost cutthroat climate for artists, that when we left I made it a point to be a sister for other artists helping and sharing if I can, (I have pretty good eye for critiques).

Lately I have been re-vamping my web page. I found this online portfolio which I have added my past work. (My style now is abstract and semi-abstract). http://godenfineart.com/portfolio.html

Sorry for the long post...Joyce

check out the scrapbook feature on photobucket ---some of the layouts are cool..

I taught watercolor classes for 12 years with the Edmonton School Board, Continuing Education Program. Although I got good evaluations from the students I never thought of myself as a guru.
I eventually quit teaching 3 years ago, and I don't miss it at all.
I don't belong to any groups. I was a member of the Alberta Society of Artists at one time for 10 years.
I paint in acrylics. I love those acrylics, the faster they dry the better I like it.
I have only owned a computer and been on the Internet just under a year and I have managed to build my own website.

I assist others with their fiber arts professional development through an online nonprofit I established in 2005 to enable physically challenged artists and emerging artists who are cut off from some of the normal means such artists have for learning. Aside from being cut off because of the physical challenges, there are others who are cut off because they have small children, or children with physical/developmental challenges, or they are geographically or financially cut off from most forms of direct learning. Everything I do is free for the artists, and I do encourage them to move on when they feel ready and able to do it, and most of them do.

I'm not any big name artist, nor do I teach them anything about how to do their art. We do offer critiques, and we do study the work of the big name artists and we also study principles of art and various aspects of doing art as a professional for those who opt for that direction. I support and encourage them in every way possible, and I take a lot of my own time to make sure that they have the tools they need to handle exhibiting and selling their work if that is what they want to do. I believe that art belongs to everyone, and that everyone deserves a chance to have exposure for their work. But through all of this, I remain in the background and am just there to provide them with opportunities that in my experience, they have not had in the past. We do live traveling exhibits and we do have challenges so that we can put together a decent exhibit each year. We are all volunteers, and we do a lot of things differently from the way they are done in the mainstream. But we get the job done. And we have never had a bad exhibit. Each year we continue to get a lot of good venues because we have a good reputation for decent shows and a good attitude overall.

I learned what I know not through schools or classes per se, but through directly working for approximately eight years with my former husband, Spencer Heath MacCallum, who discovered and made internationally famous some very talented potters, Juan Quezada and the potters of Mata Ortiz, Mexico. Spencer is an anthropologist, and when he discovered these potters initially, they were entirely unknown, and being victimized by unscrupulous antiquities dealers, who would buy their art for $3 - $5 per piece, take it and antique it, and resell it for $300 - $500 per piece. We did teach them some things directly - how to put their names on their pieces in such a way that they could not readily be antiqued ever again, and we taught them how to avoid pitting in their pottery by adding temper to it. But we never taught them anything else about actually making their pottery. We primarily focused on collecting the pottery to create some major exhibits for them (we eventually got a number of traveling exhibits and even a color catalog of their work), and to enable us to study the evolution of the pottery. Spencer paid the Mexicans a monthly stipend to enable them to be able to spend time working on their art rather than trying to work in the fields and whatever other work they might be able to get to support themselves and their families. Today they are internationally famous and you can see their work on many web sites.

You might ask why someone would do the sort of things we did then and do now. I would not so much call it teaching as facilitating. For us, assisting these artists and protecting them until they were ready to step out on their own was an adventure, much like an adventure when an archaeologist makes a wonderful discovery and wants to learn everything possible about his/her discovery. We saw not only the growth and development of the potters into the people they are today as artists, but the change of an entire culture - a culture that lived in the most abject poverty imaginable to a culture that enjoys a good measure of success and one that is no longer stuggling just to survive.

So not everyone who works with artists is a "guru," and not everyone who is working with artists wants to hold onto the same artists forever. We ARE always available to them if they want to come back and visit or to work with us in some additional way, but at the same time, we welcome seeing them grow on their own and begin to have the confidence to step out into the art world with a pretty decent idea of how to handle themselves, hopefully without getting ripped off. I know that those potters would never have reached name and fame the way they did if it were not for the work of my former husband, Spencer. And many of the fiber artists who I assisted initially have gone on to find their own unique avenues for their work as they are able to, and they are very successful now. I think it is a wonderful thing when both sides can experience the adventure and learn something new on an ongoing basis. Let me never become so set in my ways as a facilitator that there is nothing new for me to learn.

GURU OR MENTOR????? To me guru has the smell of short cut, not doing the homework, not going through the process, cutting corners. You were leading to these terms but were too polite.

Having been, in, apart of, around any number of professions from art, to business, to academia, to the military I am convinced that having a mentor is nearly essential. By mentor I mean; positive critic, door opener, guide, teacher and general sponsor. Many years ago I read a review in one of the top American art magazines that a young artist, I believe the name was Marsten, had a show at a big New York gallery and the magazine was giving him pages of review. A few months later, reading in another magazine, I learned that this artist was the new companion of Robert Raushenberg. When I was in graduate school everyone knew which senior professors were good at helping their students find jobs and which were not. In Robert Hughes' biography of Goya he has the young painter avering, "I will do it on my own." To which the listener replies, "No one does it on their own."

To me, one to the great pluses of professional study (graduate school/art school) is building the connections and developing a mentor-protege relationship. The people at the top of any profession are flooded with, in input, options, candidates and other choices, it is the mentor who "knows someone" who can access the person at the top, be it; galley owner, CEO, admiral or professor. Of course it is the protege's responsibility to ensure that he has the goods to perform once the door is opened.

You said: "The main job of nascent artists is to determine who the truly authoritative ones are." I disagree. The main job of the nascent artist is to paint.

Guru was originally a Hindu word meaning "teacher and guide". How long ago did this term assume the assumption of all-knowingness? Did we create this expectation ourselves, looking for someone to show us THE way? Don't we all have many teachers and guides? Ultimately the journey is ours, but I am happy to have people I can turn to to show me their own journeys. I stumble less on my own because of them.

After reading your letters for several years, this is my first time to write. I had just returned from a Charles Reid workshop when I opened your letter about "The Guru Syndrome".

When I explained to my husband why I really needed to go to this workshop, I referred to Charles as "The Godfather of Watercolor". Guru is an acceptable substitute for godfather.

I'll never forget this workshop and the Reid "experience", I just hope it is not my last! If it is my last, I'll have his books to read and reread and remember.

Robert you nailed my thoughts exactly about Charles Reid! I've just finished a week's workshop with him and I marvel at the generosity of this masterful artist! And he gave as you say without expectation. A very modest and a true gentleman. I learned some techniques on how to handle the brush and the paints, papers and other tools. But I also learned to be patient and be alert and to always be open to learning even if you've painted thousands of paintings as he has. I learned it's exciting to draw the same picture even if it's the third time because it's an opportunity to try something different. Experiencing Charles Reid will be one of the precious gems I will revisit often. When he took us plein air painting, I chose to paint him. I'm so glad I did! His teachings will guide me in my life span. I posted a lengthy article along with art I created during the workshop in my blog. Thanks for featuring Charles Reid - Erika

Guru - a word that conjures up New Age, although the word is very old-age, indeed, from the Sanskrit "bringer of light to darkness." Here's another word, and I'll tie them together: Placebo. The placebo effect is well known in medical studies. A clinically useless treatment is found to work about a third of the time, even more in some cases like thyroid function. So here's the question. Say I go to a healer, shaman, doctor, art teacher, you choose. The practitioner knows quite well that the placebo effect is in operation. I have a 30 per cent chance of being cured if I only believe. Should I be told, "this is a placebo?" That is honest, but destroys the effect. Most of what we perceive in the world is a reflection of our inner state. No right, no wrong, just a reflection of those (immense!) parts of ourselves about which we know nothing. The guru harnesses that power. A good one harnesses it for the student's growth. A bad one turns it to his or her own advantage. There are many forms of Yoga besides Hatha, which is what we think of here in the West. One is Bhakti, or the yoga of love of the guru. Ram Dass practices this path. By loving the guru, the self expands beyond its normal limits, and great growth can be achieved. The song, "What I Did for Love" from "A Chorus Line" hints at this. Love will drive us to greater and greater accomplishment. Bhakti uses this great power to instill devotion to practice -- doesn't Robert do the same thing with discipline and practice? Let's not allow "guru" to become pejorative, or to suggest self-aggrandizement, though it certainly can. Let's not let love of the guru be associated with weakness of mind or spirit. Sometimes, it's the placebo that cures all ills, and the magic is within the student. Any guru worth his salt knows that.

I began getting your letters because of one of my favorite "gurus" – Tony Van Hasselt. I look forward to your letters – thank you. I am 82 years old and have been an art teacher for most of my life – every thing from elementary through graduate school. You don't get rich teaching moneywise but you do get rich in pure joy when a student who came to you with what I call the "can't draw a straight line" syndrome, produces something THEY are delighted with. After I retired in 1989 I reversed the process and traveled the world taking watercolor workshops with many instructors both good & not so good. The best were those who gave good critiques and helped me develop my own style (Tony is a good example). The not so good were those who wanted us to use THEIR style. I have always believed in the old Chinese saying "The teacher opens the door. You must enter by yourself." Now I live in a retirement community and teach watercolor to people of my generation many of whom longed to make art but life interfered. The pleasure of watching them blossom is mine. I have the good luck to live in a community rich with artists of all kinds. Watercolor lends itself to helping people understand the elements of color & composition which in turn helps my students appreciate what is all around them both in art & in nature.

I guess I am a kind of guru, for I too have reached out to share my love of art and my expertise as a trained and accomplished artist with others. The FREE program for plein air painters that I started more than 11 years ago is still going strong and growing in number of particiapnts from year to year. We are out in the beautiful Pocono Mountain areas once a week from May through October to commune with nature while recording our impressions of the landscape in a variety of style and mediums. I am constantly rewarded by the accomplishments of each artist, whether a beginner or professional whose creativeness has been energized and supported by my leadership. Pike County, PA