Tuesday 17 July 2012

The Pattern is Predictable.

I stalled.

"The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work towards what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do - away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes. Believing that artwork should be perfect, you gradually become convinced that you cannot make such work. (You are correct.) Sooner or later, since you cannot do what you are trying to do, you quit. And in one of those perverse little ironies of life, only the pattern itself achieves perfection - a perfect death spiral: you misdirect your work; you stall; you quit."  From Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

But I haven't quit. Far from it. I can see now that the imperfections of my previous images are the seeds to my next attempts at creating images.