Friday, July 25, 2008

small changes

Someone told me that Albert Einstein once said: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.". I don't know if he really said that, but let's just suspend our doubt for a moment and go with it.
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes is crazy...I can agree with that. But what about doing things a different way and expecting the same results? Is that also insane?

Because that's what I'm on the verge of doing.

If you're lucky enough to enjoy some amount of positive response to your art work it can be easy to fall into the trap of continuing to turn out similar work for years hoping to continue to enjoy that success. If you're not careful, this can cause you to stop taking chances, to stop reaching further, and to stop being honest in your work.
But if you step out of that comfort zone, out of that established area of what viewers think of as "good", you run the substantial risk of failure and rejection. And aren't we all afraid of falling flat on our faces in front of everyone? Don't we all fear that scathing review that announces that our work is just not as impressive as it used to be?

Perhaps not as much as we fear becoming a one trick pony.

Maybe no one will notice the changes. Hey, it could happen.

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