Redtree Times

Edge of Doubt– At Principle Gallery

Sometimes the most important thing an accomplished person can do is quiet their cleverness.

–Larry Robertson, Great Question (2026)

I don’t think I’ve ever used a quote from somebody I knew but the one above struck a chord this morning. As noted here in the past, Larry Robertson is a columnist, speaker, consultant and the author of several award-winning books. The most recent book, which I have wrote about here, is Great Question, which examines the importance of questioning in all avenues of our lives. Larry interviewed hundreds of highly accomplished people across a wide range of professions while writing this book which has already garnered numerous awards. I am humbled to say that I was somehow included in there.

Larry points out that he got the idea of quieting your cleverness from Kaitlin Chutzi, who serves as director of biomimicry, ecosystem strategy & innovation at Microsoft, which without totally knowing what that entails sounds pretty impressive. The manner of quieting your cleverness that she describes is setting aside those things that we know and take for granted, those things that are constantly speaking to and guiding us, so that there is room for other voices, those things we may not yet now or consider, to speak out, which might provide new insights and directions for our actions.

It is basically reminding yourself that you don’t know everything and should be open to new thought from different points of view.

Even within yourself.

I may not have that completely right, but it is how it came across to me. In trying to put something together quickly this morning I am sure that I am missing the finer points.

The interesting thing is that when I read that phrase, quieting your cleverness, I applied it to what I do as an artist. I guess we all often interpret things by how they relate to our own experiences.

For me, the cleverness that I know is trying too hard to inject an idea into my work inorganically. I showed an early piece last week that I considered a failure that I now consider a good example of my own cleverness. It was an idea that didn’t grow naturally and organically from my previous work and was the product of my thought alone.

It was trying to become before it was fully formed.

I have spoken about this at gallery talks, saying that we are– meaning me– are just not that smart or clever to fully hatch all our ideas without first allowing them to grow within the work. It takes time to soften the hard edges of a new idea that mark it as being inorganic for me.

Even then, it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes we are too clever by a degree.

Quieting our cleverness is a big aspect of finding the silence in which meaningful work grows. Our cleverness is often loud and bossy, a real know-it-all who knows little.

Well, that’s my thought on this. It is probably not as fully fleshed out as it should be as I hurry to write this as the sunlight finally starts drifting in the studio windows. Probably too clever for its own good.

Maybe I will give this idea some time to grow a bit more and we can talk about it at my upcoming Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery on Saturday, September 26, beginning at 1 PM. All you have to do is ask. I am always looking for great questions at these things.

Oh, besides some laughs and good conversation (which depends on you as much as me) there is, as always, some prizes and gifts. I’ll go into more detail on that in the near future.

Hope you can make it.  I’ll try to not be too clever.

That’s usually not a problem.

Here’s a song that has little if anything to do with the subject here, even though its title is a question. Doesn’t matter. Just the right vibe for this morning in this time and place. This is the late great Marvin Gaye and What’s Going On.