« To require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward 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.
To demand perfection is to deny your ordinary (and universal) humanity, as though you would be better off without it. Yet this humanity is the ultimate source of your work; your perfectionism denies you the very thing you need to get your work done.
It is precisely this interaction between the ideal and the real that locks your art into the real world, and gives meaning to both. »
From Art & Fear, Observations of the perils (and rewards) of artmaking.
God, I have to re-read this book!
The quest to do something something closer to ‘perfect’, something ‘better’ than your last work is always lurking in the background, threatening to paralyse you at every turn.
Of course, the quest itself isn’t the bad guy. It’s the subsequent closing of the mind in fear of not living up to your so-called ‘reputation’ (in your own eyes, or that of others) that does. Hello procrastination!
But that quote reminds me to throw caution to the wind, to venture out and make some (beautiful) mistakes.
You can re-read it as soon as I give it back to you! ;-) Seriously though, it’s one of the best « advice » book I’ve read in a long time and I have a feeling that I will want to re-read it quite a few times in the years to come, so I better go buy myself my own copy!
no rush on returning the book. but i think i will re-read it when it finds its way home.