Aesthetic Perception Training

Role

Aesthetic perception training is the creative development investment with the clearest direct return on creative output quality — because the quality of what one can produce is limited by the quality of what one can perceive, and the person whose aesthetic perception is insufficiently developed to distinguish excellent from adequate work cannot reliably produce the former. The gap between the aspiring creative practitioner's intention and their output is frequently an aesthetic perception gap rather than a technical execution gap — the practitioner knows what they are trying to achieve but cannot perceive precisely enough where their execution falls short of their model. Ira Glass's articulation of 'the taste gap' — the difference between the developed aesthetic perception of what great work looks like and the current inability to produce work that meets that standard — identifies the aesthetic perception development challenge that defines the early years of any creative practitioner's development.