Drew at Quinn’s, Beacon, New York, 2019

Published 2019 March 6

Regarding #sprayandpray, I once heard a story that affected me greatly. It went something like this:

In the beginning of a pottery class the teacher announced she was making two groups: One was to be graded only on the quantity of the pots produced. The other exclusively on the quality of a single pot.

On the last day of class, after one year, a curious thing happened. The pots of highest quality were all made by the group that was to be graded on quantity.

While the ”quantity” group was making lots of work and learning from their mistakes, the ”quality” group had discussed perfection endlessly and focused on a single pot the entire time, which in the end was not very good.

I used to be afraid of negative reactions to things I made, and was firmly in the ”quality” group, dwelling and waiting to be able to make the ”perfect” thing. After some time I realized that ”talented” people were actually people who worked hard on something they were interested in and spent a lot of time making different versions of things.

Later one may have the experience to make only one thing and do it very well, but not without first spending time making a lot of things. I consider myself an amateur who has been lucky to work with and learn from a few masters, including some sporting white beards, but I don’t believe in prayer — I believe in better chance!