An Examination of Language

It’s been a while.

Since the last time I posted a writing, my second daughter was born. I’ve taken on a new title. I’ve gone deeper into my artistic practice. And I’ve stepped into another Division I head coaching role in rugby.

I’ve been busy.

But I’ve also been thinking about language.

Art has its own vocabulary. It begins in formalism, then grows outward through art historians, critics, and contemporary theory. The language becomes dense. Expansive. Often emotional. Art resonates differently within each of us because it filters through our own experiences. We are associative creatures. We connect what we see to what we’ve lived.

And yet, when we try to describe that experience, we’re forced into words.

We don’t technically have to describe anything, but if we want to communicate, we do. And spoken language is limited. It leans on implication, context, and shared reference. Synonyms overlap, but they are never identical. Meaning behaves more like a Venn diagram than an equation. There is proximity, but never perfect substitution.

Our vocabulary is only as precise as our experience allows it to be.

Why does this matter?

Partly because I spend my days explaining the world to small children. Partly because I’m breaking down complex movement patterns for young rugby players. In both cases, I’m forced to confront what I actually mean. I have to strip ideas down. I have to be exact. I have to decide whether I’m describing what I feel or what is actually happening.

That pressure exposes the gaps.

As artists, we run into the same problem. We feel something in the studio; something intuitive, physical, or unresolved. But when we speak about it, we reach for preexisting language. Sometimes it fits. Often it doesn’t. The danger is that we settle for the closest available word instead of interrogating whether it truly captures the experience.

Precision matters.

The more specifically we can describe our own internal states, the easier it becomes to examine them while we are still working; hands on the material, mid-process, before the artifact hardens into something fixed.

Coaching has reinforced this for me. I played the game for years. Much of it became automatic. But when you’re asked to explain a movement that your body performs without thought, you realize how much you’ve internalized without language. Translating instinct into instruction is a discipline. It reveals what you actually understand versus what you simply repeat.

The same applies to critique.

Be as specific as possible when you analyze work, whether it’s your own or someone else’s. Be honest about what you feel. Then slow down and choose your words carefully. Language doesn’t just describe meaning. It produces it. And sometimes it produces meaning far beyond what you intended.

If we want sharper art, sharper teaching, and sharper thinking, we need to do serious work developing and defining our terms and how we speak them.