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Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Still Making Things

Some things I make are disappointments.  The size or scale is wrong, the paper is wrong, or the design is unremarkable.  Or all three.... plus Je Ne Sais Pas.

And yet, I keep going.  I paint over or throw away.  I'm the only judge and jury in this house. Failures are inevitable, but punishment is inconsequential.

Thomas Edison said, "I haven't failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

(Not that what I'm creating is on the scale of what Edison did, but still....)

Every idea I've ever woken up in the night planning has been done before and much better than what I could do (yet), but I keep going.

I try again. I puzzle over possibilities when I'm doing other things.  I attempt a particular technique over and over in hopes of mastering just this one little bit.

It's exhilarating when a page or a project works out so well that you, yourself, the creator of it, want to look at it when you get up in the middle of the night.

Overall, the best part--probably so in any endeavor--is not the product but the process, the all-absorbing process of doing and stretching outside a comfort zone and learning for one's own self what works.





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