Ever since I stumbled onto the fantastic blog, Muddy Colors, about a year ago, I started reading their articles from the beginning. I’m on August of 2011. I got a while to go to be current.
Today I read an article “Why dumb ideas can be great ideas”, by Dan dos Santos. There are several good quotes about experimenting and failing. I’m at the stage where I’m pretty much experimenting with whatever I do. I’ve sort of found the process I like doing, but I’m afraid others won't like it. Thus I’m not really concentrating on it. When I do explore this process, it is joyful to me because it is all emotional based, and so everything I do is an experiment. Every piece is evolving from something new. So my process is really a non-process. I always thought that to be a great artist, one must get to a point where one does A, B, C then D and a little of E and …voila … a great piece of artwork emerges.
I’m slowly learning this is not always the case. Great artwork can emerge from chaos, experiments gone wrong, and many many failings. However, it is hard to travel down a path you think is wrong. It is much easier to follow everyone else. Where am I going with this? I don’t know. Maybe I should continue down that unknown path and take Greg Manchess’ challenge to take more risks and fail more often.
Hey, this is so true. I found the quote "The person who never made a mistake never tried anything new" from Albert Einstein. It is kinda comforting to know that it is ok to fail, and that successful people have failed more time than I did. Please post more about your thoughts and process.
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