About Fish Closet

I took a drawing class last summer. The teacher told us the following story:

A man hired an artist to paint him a picture of a fish. Several months went by, and since the man had not yet received his painting, he visited the painter.

“Where is my painting?” asked the man.

“You will get your painting soon,” said the artist.

A few months later the man returned to the artist to ask for his painting.

“You will get your painting soon,” said the artist.

A year later, the man became tired of waiting. He went to the artist and demanded that he paint his fish painting while he waited. The artist whipped out a painting of a fish and gave it to the man.

The man said, “If it was that easy, why didn’t you paint my fish a year ago?”

The painter opened the door to his closet and piles of fish paintings came pouring out. The painter explained that he hadn’t gotten one right yet.

I love this story for two reasons. 1) For every “successful” painting, story, photograph, song, [insert creative endeavor here], you have to create a lot of junk. 2) You are usually your own toughest critic.

Among other things, this blog will serve as my fish closet. My goal is to create. Whether or not I create anything that I actually like is irrelevant, as long as I have something creative to show for myself at the end of the day.