The art of imperfection.

  
Most people don't have to practice being imperfect . . .

Neither do I, of course.  I just have to practice living with it.

That's the real idea behind my new 365 Creativity Challenge.

You can find a link to it right in my sidebar . . .

While on vacation recently, I was giving my mother a hard time about her yard.  It is immaculate, as perfect as anything connected to the natural world can be.  As she describes it, she "just doesn't like her nature touching."  By which she means the leaves should stay on the trees, flower petals should not touch grass, etc. etc. And she has beautiful rose gardens, but I feel she is almost unable to enjoy them because every time there is a breeze, petals drop and then it doesn't look perfect anymore, and she worries until she has them picked up.

Nature is touching? 

This explains a lot about why
she once had my brother
rake the snow as a kid.
(There were berries and twigs on it.)










I compared it to someone who can't stand it when the gravy from their potatoes touches the peas on their plate.  She said it wasn't the same thing AT ALL  (one of us may be lovably nuts, btw).

Of course imperfection stands 

at the heart of art.

  

It is the desire to express the idea, but the inability to do it with absolute finality and precision, that drives the artist to continue to create.

Where there is perfection 

there is no story to tell.

-- Ben Okri

So the point of my practicing drawing is not to achieve the ability to draw with photo realism.

The point is to be able to draw well enough to tell the story I want to tell AND get comfortable enough in my own drawing skin to stop worrying about the unimportant parts and let the real parts just sing their imperfect song.

The only true happiness is to learn,

to advance, and to improve: 

which could not happen 

unless we had commenced 

with error, ignorance, and imperfection.

-- Albert Pike

I started with plenty of that last stuff -- we'll see if I can move on to true happiness with my drawing in just one year.  It's hard to know exactly what to hope for, I guess.

Not for practice to make perfect.

Perfection = game over

But I guess for imperfect to make happy.  

Yeah, I think that's it.