Finding Zen in Mastery: A Conversation with Photographer Adam Marelli
Adam Marelli has decoded mastery. Through decades of studying craftspeople and notable artists, he’s unravelled the mystique of perfecting a skill.
Shooting maestros in their reclusive workshops enables Marelli to observe vocation honing up-close. From Japanese knife makers sharpening a 400-year-old practice to Venetian carvers chiselling wooden gondolas, Adam has a rare intimacy with excellence.
Marelli’s credentials as a builder and creative participant grant him access to sequestered workrooms. Makers guard their techniques and transfer skills to a select few. Their timeworn knowledge is the product of multiple generations and often passed through oral tradition.
Documenting elite creators defines Adam’s work as a photographer, teacher and artist. Luckily, he’s sharing the learnings for those not invited to the grandmaster’s studio.
Marelli began scrutinizing artists as a juvenile and later at NYU. He probed the biographies of Da Vinci, Michelangelo and other mythic figures for insight into their process. Seeking the key to their brilliance while attempting to hone his own, he unmasked the myth of innate talent.
Historic maestros weren’t immediately capturing the pillars of the Parthenon. They started simple and progressed slowly.
Leonardo sketched hands a thousand times. Van Gogh drew apples, many apples. Artists weren’t slogging through the 10,000-hour rule like scientific research. They enjoyed the creative process. They had fun.
Yes, they even failed. Lighting master Caravaggio had several works rejected; the Renaissance equivalent of a public scandal. Bands make bad albums. Million-dollar statues get hidden away in cupboards.
Despite cliched accounts of painters leapfrogging between achievements, Adam’s career is closer to reality. He wasn’t the born savant of Netflix biopics. As a 10-year-old, Adam was only marginally ahead of his classmates. There was no divine gift. In his own words, he had to “take some time to really suck.”
Adam also admits to a “touch and go” relationship with work. Most artists he knew were of the struggling kind. Marelli also undertook the typical hospitality jobs after college. Unimpressed with his NYU experience, his formative study was entirely unacademic. He spent ten years apprenticing with a master builder and studied under a Zen monk.
Somehow his unorthodox path made sense. Marelli’s now a multi-platform artist; working in sculpture, painting the ocean’s surface, designing celestial building installations and of course, taking photos.
Rather than further mystify the artistic journey, Adam sets the roadmap for others. His photography classes are a bright pearl in the digital sea of lukewarm content. Marelli’s lucid curriculum makes the journey from rookie to adept feel less like wizardry and more like the inevitable consequence of making an effort.
“I can just lay out a few lily-pads to get you where you want to go and then you can expand endlessly,” he attests.
Adam removes the pomposity from art. This ensures the formidable topic is not only understandable but enjoyable for those of us who’ve ever felt silly at the museum.
He says artisans have laid a roadmap for anyone to learn from, but their expertise is camouflaged by pretension.
“Most art books, the ones that I read in school, they were crushingly boring. You’d have to be a lunatic to really get into this stuff, they were so dry. Artists lives were anything but dry, but they were passed through this academic filter.”
In the below audio, we discuss Adam’s beginnings and his ordinary career path. We also examine what he learned capturing remote tribes in Vanuatu, the similarities between master craftsman across the globe, and his advice for pursuing mastery in our own lives.
All photos by Adam. Check out his website here: http://www.adammarelli.com/
Educate yourself on his workshops and online tutorials: https://amworkshops.com/
Adam’s YouTube tutorials live here. Follow him on Instagram too.
Originally published at http://www.jimmyness.com on October 16, 2020.
