The surest way to fail as a creator is to set some shining example of perfection in front of you and then spend all your time measuring the horrible gap between your example and what you’ve done. When you are engaged in that measurement, you are not paying attention to the thing in front of you, the thing you’re engaged in making. My students are so consumed with the drawing they’re not making, they literally can’t see the still life in front of them. Those that learn to have a productive non-judgmental relationship with failure stand a good chance of going on to becoming artists. ΒΆ Those that can’t usually stop making anything. When I started to work towards becoming an artist I had to drop the security of my righteousness about how other people made things. It was keeping me from an understanding of the nuts and bolts of how things worked. I couldn’t keep seeing works of art and artists as shining Idols, anymore, to be knelt before or kicked over, at my whim. I had to stop reading my aversion to certain works are being a a personal betrayal of my trust on the part of their makers.
Nayland Blake, “Why I left…”
