Experiences

Just a sketch of an idea

Sometimes, to make an idea take shape, we have to take the risk of making an imperfect sketch.

In art school, criticism is a practice. It’s the way you are taught. So the artist’s mind gets trained to look for the imperfect. It takes a lot of living to learn that looking at life this way is no way to live.

The conscious effort to look for the good and the beautiful takes practice and requires choice. It is a different way to learn. What is pleasurable can teach us to be on the alert for harmony, balance and beauty, and pursue them.

How can I choose to look at this drawing?

I can see the “not-right” arms. The weird curve under the legs, the slanted arch behind the figure.

Or I can choose to focus on the things that are pleasing to my eye: the sweet profile, the pleasant curves, the simple goddess pose inspired by Egyptian art.

If I decide to keep it, I can rework it and turn it into a painting. I can fix the things that are wrong, and keep what I like. But if I only see the bad, then I will have to start over and lose everything that is working.

In life, we can choose similarly. We can take a look at the whole, celebrate what is good and beautiful, and dedicate the time and effort necessary to give a new shape to what is not working.

Keep the good, change the bad.

I have never accepted what I don’t like. But there are things I don’t quite like that have a chance to improve if I put in the effort. Like a drawing, we can erase the lines that we don’t like. Yes, there will be traces of the old lines. We call them experiences.

And then, the beautiful and flowing new lines can be sealed with ink.