I am reading a book called Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland
I came across this passage that resonated with me so much that I felt compelled to read it at one of my groups and re-post it here.
“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot albeit a perfect one to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work and learning from their mistakes the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”
This is exactly the wall I have been butting my head against. I know that as soon as I finish a work I realize I could have done it differently. It could have been done in a different style or with different colors. I could have paid more attention to detail or not been so hung up on detail. It causes some of us artists and writers to stare at blank paper for long periods of time. We get blocked by our own fear; a fear that translates into a desire to get it perfect the first time.
I just finished several pieces of work and got an idea of how to make them better. But if I hadn’t done them I would not have had the resource to know how to improve them. It’s not wasted effort. Wasted effort is doing what the ceramics students did in the above quote: sat around staring at their medium, afraid to touch it.
Don’t be afraid to dive in and get dirty. The more “failures” you create the better your future work will be. Go ahead and finish that piece of work that has you frozen. The time you spend staring at it is time you could be using doing it.
I still hate Facebook
Why? Because more and more organizations, rather than update their own sites are posting little banners that say “Follow us on bla bla bla. In order to find out what they are up to I must go to bla bla bla to stay up to date. I go there because many of the friends I used to email are now in this eternal (or should I say infernal) chatroom and no longer answer from their old email addresses.
Let me tell you that I have always hated chat rooms. I hate them as much as standing around at parties trying to think of something to say. I have hated them since the BBS (bulletin board service) and newsgroup days.
Whenever I log on to FB I am bombarded with announcements that Sally has found a lost virtual kitten and wants me to adopt it. Charlene is in love with the last winner of America’s Got Talent. Jane wants the world to give her ideas of what to have for breakfast, and Tom is sitting around doing nothing and wants the world to know it.
Has the world gone crazy, or is it just crushingly bored? Or is it super egotistical? Whatever is happening, I have no time for such nonsense.
For me, any professional organization that says, “Follow us on…” may as well be wearing a hat that looks like a wedge of cheese. Yet, when I see that little banner I know I have to, or be left out in the cold.
I do not consider myself a Luddite. My first computer ran on DOS, had a grayscale monitor and didn’t have a mouse. It ran on real floppy disks. I was installing components long before the “plug and play” era. I have been online since the dial up AOL days. I am, in fact, an online junkie. But FB is where I draw the line.
I suppose there are a few good things about FB. It’s like one stop shopping. I can go there and check all the updates of the organizations I am interested in rather than bouncing from site to site. Another advantage is…. . um…. I can’t think of anything else.
I have briefly thought about putting a “follow me” banner to draw people to my websites, The Golden Child, The Real Goldie Locks, Zebracorn Graphics and Art Wanted. But that would be one more site I would have to manage. No thank you.
Give me SocialGo or ning any day.