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: 50 pounds of pots rated an “A”, 40 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.
Art and Fear- David Bayles and Ted Orland (via qweety)
Perfection is intimidating. I think most artists blocks come from the fear of creating something imperfect.
(via buttastic)
putting it even more simply: just make shit. eventually it’ll be good shit. maybe most of it will just be shit! but you can’t make good shit if you’re not making a lot of shit.
GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS.
(via aintgotnoladytronblues)
Kind of important. I’ve spent way too much of my life thinking about the perfect things I could make without actually making the damned things.
(via madmaudlingoes)