Quit trying so hard to make perfect art and just make art. Lots of it.

I’ve always been a little bit of a perfectionist.

I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like to speak unless a thought is perfectly formulated in my head. I don’t like to hit publish until I’m absolutely sure that everything is just right. It’s often difficult for me to share my work with family and friends if it isn’t perfect (and it never is, of course.)

I took a ceramics class in high school. Despite the fact that I really enjoy making things, this class was an absolute nightmare for me.

In fact, it was the only class I ever got an F in. I got an F in freakin’ ceramics class. Embarrassing.

Why? It wasn’t that I wasn’t working in class. I slaved over that potter’s wheel, actually. I spun so much clay it rubbed my hands raw. So how did I get an effing F?

I was trying so hard to make awesome pots and bowls that I didn’t make pots or bowls.

I’d center the clay and begin to form a bowl. I’d then notice that it was “A little too square around the bottom,” or that the top lip was a little uneven. So, being the perfectionist I was I’d swoop in to fix it and in my effort I’d end up horribly mangling it.

In the end, all I’d have to show for my work was a wet ball of clay.

Hence, the F.

Strength in Numbers

The amount of great art you make is directly proportionate to the overall amount of art you make. If you’re not making “meh” art, you’re not making any great art either.

In Art and Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland share a memorable story that mirrors my own high school experience:

“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the 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 and a curious fact emerged: the works of 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.”

Fortunately, I was able to learn from my own experience in ceramics class before it was too late. By the grace of my teacher I was able to pull my grade up from the previous quarter by just cranking out bowls. I started finishing them, imperfections at all. An imperfect bowl was worth more than no bowl at all.

In the end, I came out with some crappy stuff, some OK stuff, and one or two actually pretty decent bowls.

The key takeaway here is that making great art is a numbers game, and that to make a lot of great art, you need to be making a crap-ton of art in general, much of it just OK.

Notable examples

Rembrandt made just shy of 800 paintings and prints.

Van Gogh produced around 900 paintings (only one of which was sold in his lifetime.)

Monet graced us with over 1300 paintings and drawings.

Are you familiar with every single one of their paintings? I sure am not. Only a good handful from each are truly iconic works. Not all of them are famous.

But even these gentlemen didn’t reach the sheer numbers of one Pablo Picasso.

During his lifetime it is estimated that Picasso produced 13,500 paintings, 100,000 graphic prints or engravings, 34,000 book illustrations, and 300 sculptures and ceramics.

Let that sink in for a minute. No, i’m not just throwing extra zeroes in there.

What does this mean? It means that for every Guernica or Weeping Woman, there are literally thousands of pieces that you’ve never heard of.

There’s also an empowering truth here: If it took that much work for Picasso to be as as prolific as he is — to have the body of iconic work he has — why would it be different for any of us?

Kinda levels the playing field, doesn’t it?

It also makes me realize that I need to make way more art than I do.

Quantity Creates Quality

For every home run there are many doubles, singles, and even strikeouts.

For every ideal client landed in business there are hundreds or even thousands of leads that never went anywhere.

When someone’s found their “soulmate,” they’ve usually waded through a bunch of failed relationships and countless terrible first dates to get to that point.

You have to shovel through lots of dirt and rock to find gold.

Sometimes you’re lucky and succeed early on. But it’s impossible to be so lucky that you achieve raging success with every single thing you make.

It’s this way for a reason. We need the crappy and the mediocre to fully appreciate the breakthroughs when they happen. Also, flawed art and failure teach us far more than success does.

It’s the trying and not quite measuring up that give us the real experience we need in order to become the skilled, seasoned type of person that has the ability to succeed consistently and on demand.

Want to have that kind of skill? Stop sweating over perfection and start making art.

Go Forth and Create

With all this in mind, why should we be so concerned with only producing amazing art?

Why should we shy away from ideas just because we think we’ll mess them up?

Why should we be so self-conscious about the fact that not everything we touch turns into pure gold?

Let’s all stop it with the perfectionism and just start filling the world with beautifully imperfect works of art. Let’s make art that teaches us lessons, gets us out of our comfort zones, and shows our weakness as well as our strength.

Let’s make human art. Tons of it. And in the process we may step back and find that we’ve had the privilege of making something more divine.

What has helped you accept and embrace the fact that not everything you make will always be amazing? Let us know in the comments.