Mentorship in creative work

The mentor in creative work does not primarily transmit techniques but transmits a relationship to the work — a way of looking at it, being honest with it, returning to it when it resists. This is why the best mentors are often those who were themselves well-taught, not those who are most technically accomplished: what passes from person to person is an orientation, a standard, a proof that sustained creative work is possible. The debt owed to teachers is real but is best repaid not to them but forward, which is how traditions stay alive.