Practice - the Word with
Heather René Dunaway
February 2026
Practice makes perfect.
Sure does. This goes for a lot of things too. Well, everything you have ever wanted to be good at, really. While some people are born with supernatural abilities to pick up an instrument right away and know how to play it, the most of us are left to learn our scales to build up our expertise.
Thank you to everyone in my family for not killing me when I was learning to play the trumpet in middle school while wearing braces. I apologize for your ringing ears and trumpet-haunted nightmares. But hey, I made it to second chair and our band won bronze at regionals. All that practice paid off.
This practice, however, doesn’t just apply to learning your craft. It also applies to cultivating it. The dishes you prepare could be the best in town, but if you haven’t practiced speaking publicly about it, writing about it, learning what it takes to present it professionally, you likely won’t go far.
Your artistic practice doesn’t end at the edge of your canvas. Part of what I learned when studying for my undergrad at AU was writing about art (not just mine). I learned about analyzing art. I learned about art history. I found these subjects incredibly useful when I stepped outside of school. However, much of what I learned was through the application of those techniques out in the real world.
I learned from what other artists were doing as well as through my own failures. I asked a lot of questions from the people who inspired me. If my work didn’t get into a show, I looked to see who did and tried to figure out what they were doing that I wasn’t. A good bit of the time, it was them having better applications than me. My art was good, but my resume was not. My bio was not. The photos of my work were lacking, to say the least.
So yes, practice your art form. Whatever that is but also practice the other stuff. They go hand in hand.
That’s it. No Carnegie Hall references required. Now go do the things.
-Heather