Taste Is Built Through Exposure
- Brian A. Kavanaugh
- May 1
- 3 min read
Taste is not singular.
It develops differently across environments.
Shaped by what someone has the opportunity to encounter, notice, and return to.
It is built over time.
If the range of work one is exposed to is narrow, then taste develops within that range.
Not because of a lack of ability.
But because of a lack of exposure.
This becomes especially visible in environments where that range has been historically shaped.
In my time working in Romania, I encountered this directly.
Many of the parents of adults with IDD I worked with understood art primarily through two lenses:
as something that served a nationalist purpose,
or as something that served a religious one.
This was not incidental.
It reflected the conditions they had been raised within —
where art was tied to community, tradition, and collective meaning.
Within that framework, experimentation and idiosyncrasy did not immediately register as indicators of “successful” art.
Not because they lacked value.
But because they had not been consistently encountered, reinforced, or recognized.
At times, such work could even be seen as politically—and personally—dangerous.
What became clear was not that taste was limited.
It was that taste had been shaped with precision —
by what had been available to see,
and by what had been allowed to continue.
This is not unique to one place.
It exists in every studio.
The difference is often less visible.
Studio facilitators sit directly inside this.
They do not just provide materials.
They shape the conditions of encounter —
what is introduced,
what is available to be seen,
what is returned to over time.
Taste is not only formed through what an artist chooses.
It is also formed through what is made available to be chosen from.
This is where the question becomes more precise.
Are the tastes of the artists being supported limited by the flavors their facilitating artists are aware of?
Sometimes.
But more accurately, the range of taste in a studio is shaped by what can be encountered there.
And that is not neutral.
It is structured through the facilitator’s references —
what they know, what they have seen, what they recognize —
and their preferences —
what they are drawn to, what they find compelling, what they reinforce.
These forces do not announce themselves.
They accumulate.
Quietly shaping what is seen as interesting,
what is recognized as progress,
what is given time,
what is redirected.
Over time, this creates a pattern.
Certain directions are revisited.
Others fall away more quickly.
Certain materials are explored deeply.
Others are introduced but not sustained.
Some work feels like it is “going somewhere.”
Other work is harder to place — and therefore harder to hold.
None of this is intentional.
But all of it is consequential.
Because development does not only depend on what appears.
It depends on what remains long enough to develop.
This is human.
And when that boundary is reached,
the work is not to resolve it —
but to recognize where decisions are still available.
There are moments in facilitation where something begins to move beyond what is immediately recognizable.
The work does not yet “read” clearly.
Its direction is not easily named.
Its value is not yet confirmed by familiar standards.
These are often the moments where a facilitator reaches the edge of their own taste.
In these moments, it can be tempting to rely on that taste —
to guide the work toward something more legible, more familiar, more easily understood.
But this is also a point of possibility.
Rather than focusing on what the work is becoming,
it becomes more useful to focus on where decisions are available.
Where is the fork in the road?
Where can something be chosen, adjusted, extended, or shifted?
Taste, in this sense, is not something to be delivered to the artist.
It is built through accumulating decisions.
Not abstract preference, but lived selection —
what is continued,
what is changed,
what is returned to,
what is left behind.
At these moments, the role of the facilitator shifts.
Not toward clarifying the outcome,
but toward helping the artist recognize where decisions exist.
Not resolving uncertainty,
but making it usable.
Because when attention stays with the forks in the road,
rather than rushing toward the destination,
the work is no longer limited by what the facilitator already understands.
It is extended through what the artist is able to decide.
The goal is not to eliminate the facilitator’s preference.
That is neither possible nor desirable.
The goal is to recognize it as an active condition —
so it does not become an invisible ceiling.
From there, the work is not to guide taste.
It is to make decisions visible.
Comments