Conquer fear with quantum work

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. - Vincent Van Gogh.


A ceramics teacher announced on the first day of school that he was dividing his 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 a curious fact emerged: the works of the 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.

The message here is a simple one. To do better work, produce more work. Don’t focus on perfection, but on continued development and in doing so, you will be able to improve your skills and stand out from the crowd.

What area of your life do you need to be making more mistakes in so that you can keep learning? 

The book Art & Fear offers a different perspective. Authors Orland and Bayles suggest that we’re never supposed to reach our vision. Why? We should always be two steps ahead of ourselves. It’s that longing, that third eye knowing, that’s where art lies. Your true self, your art is always ahead of where you are. Xeno’s paradox. Every time you advance, your vision advances. It’s what will eventually will define your work and give it at least some of the qualities you’re striving for.

It asks you to risk. To strip and get up on the table. It asks you to allow others to critique you even when they wouldn’t be brave enough to attempt what you’ve recklessly, foolishly and wholeheartedly tried. Our authenticity isn’t in achieving that rare and brief moment when your vision and execution magically align. Authenticity is in the struggle.

Is there a solution? A partial one. Create lots of work. We close that gap (a little, if we’re lucky) by the very act of creation itself. Our art teaches us. 90% of our art is just a teaching tool. We have to be willing to ditch (I call it throwing our babies off the temple mound) almost all of what we create in order to find in the heap of mistakes the one gem, the one nugget of “what we mean to say.”

In the end, it’s not about us, it’s about the work.

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, written by David Bayles and Ted Orland