What About Intermediate Artists?

I’ve been creating for many years now, and tried many different media. Though there were many I decided to abandon, there have also been several I liked and wanted to improve. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a troubling pattern: in every art form I took up, once I reached the intermediate level, I found myself without any guidance at all. It seems educational resources, be they project tutorials or guides on tools, techniques, or theory, are all written for either experts or absolute beginners. Why are the intermediate artists neglected? This bothered me for quite a while before I realized just what being “intermediate” means. When you’ve reached the intermediate level, you no longer need help with the very basics of your art; if you’re a wire artist, you know how to hold your pliers, understand gauge and hardness, and can shape wire into more complex forms than a simple loop or coil. Now you’re learning more detailed things about your art. How much force do you apply and where to make that particular shape? Can you keep track of and properly work with multiple wires at once? You’re getting more familiar with your medium. There aren’t really a lot of things you can say to help someone at that stage. I know some more advanced things about working with wire, but I can’t really put them into words. If you really want to help an intermediate artist learn, the best thing you can do to help isn’t talking about the medium, it’s giving them something to practice. Let them watch what you do and try to duplicate it, or give them a step-by-step project tutorial. Intermediate level tutorials are still sadly lacking for most media, but that is a much easier problem to fix than trying to start a detailed theoretical dialogue with students.