I need to add more STUFF
On not knowing when to say when
A project I was recently working on involved drawing lots and lots of sandwiches. This was awesome. I cannot tell you how relaxing it was to listen to Lost Lambs, Madeline Cash’s excellent debut novel, and draw sandwiches for an afternoon.
For inspiration, I looked at Shel Silverstein’s illustrations. No one could draw piles of stuff like Shel Silverstein, and he was my favorite illustrator without me realizing it for years. I still remember my elementary school librarian gently suggesting that there were other books in the library besides Where the Sidewalk Ends and There’s a Light in the Attic.
As someone who has accidentally destroyed many a drawing by overworking it, I understand where Shel was coming from. Of course, he knew the importance of clarity and when to say when (this is harder than it sounds), but I still credit him for teaching me that need to keep adding to the pile that’s been ingrained in my brain for the last 30 some years.
Much like an actual sandwich, adding too much can ruin it. I try to remember the parable of the second grade art teacher from Six Degrees of Separation:
I remembered asking my kids’ second-grade teacher: ‘Why are all your students geniuses? Look at the first grade—blotches of green and black. The third grade—camouflage. But your grade, the second grade, Matisses, every one. You’ve made my child a Matisse…What is your secret?’ ‘I don’t have any secret. I just know when to take their drawings away from them.’
Many years ago, I toured the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, and I immediately recognized Antoni Gaudí’s compulsion. He, too, needed to add more stuff. Weren’t there enough ornaments? Surely there was nothing to be gained by adding one more spire, or ceramic fruit? And yet, the cathedral is still considered unfinished. It was started in 1883. If you’re not careful, this is where I Need to Add More Stuff Disease will take you. There is an excellent chance the Sagrada Família will never be seen without scaffolding, no one willing to finally say, you know, I think we’re good, let’s call it.
Cannot a thing make us uncomfortable, e.g. tension of not knowing when it is complete, and yet still be a wholesome work of art? One of the greatest barriers to scientific progress was the belief that all the basics were known, only the details remained. Heraclitus, quoted by Plato, wrote that
Everything flows and nothing abides.
Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.
Everything flows; nothing remains.
All is flux, nothing is stationary.
All is flux, nothing stays still.
All flows, nothing stays.
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Thus it is not possible to achieve perfection, a static state, in a universe always in flux.
Imagine if an infant was learning how to walk and each time he fell someone yelled at him for being so clumsy and less than perfect. You probably shrink in horror from the idea, yet so many people are even more abusive to their own creative efforts.
Name one great work of art, literature, etc. that is one string of unbroken successes.
LOVE THIS!