Do you have a New Year’s resolution? I have one:
Do More
For me the creative process is iterative. I try something, take a look, make a change, compare my results, find inspiration or see a new twist, try again, and often end with something wonderful and unexpected. The more I do, the better I get. I am building up a body of work—some of it’s total crap, but some of it is pretty good indeed.
There’s a story about a pottery class where half the students were graded on quantity and half on quality. The quality students aimed for one perfect pot by the end of the class; the quantity students were graded on the number of pots they made regardless of quality. The students who aimed for quantity ended up with better quality pots because they weren’t afraid to try, fail, experiment, learn, and try again.
More is good. Practice makes perfect.
Take that to heart. Whatever your creative outlet, do it more this year. If you don’t expect perfection every time, I’ll bet you’ll have some fantastic work in twelve months’ time.
Posted by kuri at January 02, 2004 09:03 AMMine is “do sports”. I’m the typical geek who feels most comfortable in front of his computer. Action is evil and sports are the devils doing. ;) But as I am getting older, my body isn’t that generous about just sitting around all day long. So recently I put on some weight which makes me feeling uncomfortable. Furthermore I get short of breath after climbing some stairs. So I finally thought I should do something while I’m still quite slim.
Posted by: kaeng on January 2, 2004 07:00 PMMine is “laugh more” - well there is a bit more to it, but the rest is not PG rated.
Posted by: Tracey on January 5, 2004 02:04 PMSounds like darned good advice. I’ll take it.
Now, if only someone would pay me for all this production…
lyd
Posted by: lyd on January 6, 2004 04:18 AM…thanks, I needed that. Really. I avoid going into my studio, hovering over my keyboard for hours. Why. Quality. I’ve been stuck on the need for everything I do to blow my mind. But since I’m such a harsh judge, nothing I’ve been doing does it for me. So everything in my studio has a thin film of dust on it.
Well, thanks. I forgot that what made being an art student (in 1985) so amazing was that we were so productive and in being productive we invariably improved. —next, I need to figure out how to stop procrastinating, haw, haw, haw..
Posted by: kent on January 8, 2004 06:11 PMMine is stay positive. Confronted with a problem? Don’t dwell on it seeing only the roadblock. Don’t complain (talking about my inner voice more so than with others – but that too) – try like heck to always stay positive and in that mindset things get done.
Posted by: Natasha on January 27, 2004 01:51 AM