The Saying, "Those Who Can't Do, Teach" is Bullshit

There is a saying that goes, "Those who can't do, teach."

I was a professional illustrator for over a decade, with work appearing in New York Press, Riverfront Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and St. Louis Magazine. I had done. And eventually I stopped. Not because I couldn't, but because I no longer cared. After years of deadlines and assignments, the enthusiasm drained out of it. I put down the pencil, and for six years, I didn't pick it up again.

During those years away, I didn't miss it as much as I expected. I had other priorities, and art felt like a closed chapter. But something was nagging at me that I couldn't quite name.

Ten years ago, I started Drawn Studio. Teaching forced me to look at drawing differently, not as something I produced, but as something I understood. To explain a process clearly, you have to actually know it. And the knowing I brought into that room came from years of professional work: the deadlines, the repetition, the craft ground down to instinct.

That's when the saying started to mean something different to me. You have to do, really do, before you can teach. The experience is the whole point.