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.
Art and Fear
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.