The creative avoid wasting their time. If something isn’t working out, they kill it off and start something new.
You become emotionally attached to a project you have invested a lot of effort in.
It becomes precious. It becomes like a baby that you have nurtured.
But the more you try to save a project, the more overworked and laboured it becomes.
If you stop banging your head against a wall and move on to something more productive,
you are exercising good judgement.
It does not mean you have failed. You are controlling the situation rather than letting it control you.
Francis Bacon was famous for destroying huge numbers of his paintings. He destroyed paintings he was dissatisfied with.
Bacon was so ruthless that from the first fifteen years of his career only fourteen paintings survive.
Even towards the end of his life the ritual slashing of rejected canvases with a knife continued.
He would not let anything second rate leave his studio.
Once, he was walking past a gallery when he saw one of his paintings in the window.
He decided it wasn’t as good as he once thought. He went into the gallery, bought the painting, took it outside and destroyed it.
He knew that the longer he worked on a painting, the more ponderous and turgid it would become.
Don’t become locked into a project. If you fall in love with one idea, you won’t see the merits of alternatives.
EVERY ACT OF
CREATION IS
FIRST AN ACT OF
DESTRUCTION.
-Pablo Picasso
