A Tale of Two Quotes

On the wall in my office, I keep a quote...usually meant to inspire my students as they go about their scholastic lives. I've never been fond of the typical guidance counselor themed inspirational posters (kittens hanging out of trees admonishing students to "hand in there!" just don't work with my decorating scheme) so I find more obscure quotes that speak to my young artists and the difficulties they face in their first year of college.

Until about a month ago, the quote that hung on my wall was this: "Every task involves constraint, solve the thing without complaint; there are magic links and chains forged to loose our rigid brains. Structures, strictures, though they bind, strangely liberate the mind." (James Falen) I wanted my students to understand that the creative process had, until this point in their careers, been intuitive and without restrictions. In college, we were going to set limits on the creative act. We were going to give them rules and force them into little artistic boxes. While that form of control is incredibly difficult at first, artists CAN learn to work within a system. An artist CAN find freedom in restriction. My favorite piece of advice for students is that you have to actually KNOW the rules before you can break them.

I was having a conversation with my counterpart in the Art Foundation program yesterday about a class she is teaching for seniors. The seniors have been asked to write an "artist statement" regarding their body of work and the students are having a lot of problems with the assignment. I thought back to my first "artist statement"--in my program it was called a "manifesto" and it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. We were working with a training style called "via negativa"--simply put, you eliminate all of the bad qualities (the failures) until only the good remain. With each attempt at the manifesto, I was sure I had finally got it right...I handed it in to my advisor, only to be told "no". My advisor would frequently take what I had written and cross out all but one sentence--telling me to start again from that point. If my advisor was feeling particularly kind, he would say, "that was good, now take the suck out of it." But when I got it, when I finally understood what he wanted (and what is nearly impossible to articulate because the statement has to come from YOU, the artist) it was the best feeling in the world. These experiences reminded me of the quote that now hangs on my wall. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." (Samuel Beckett) As artists, we are never able to achieve perfection. Every work we attempt is an uphill battle (whether or not we perceive it as unequivocated failure or not is irrelevant)--we can only learn from the mistakes we made, and "fail better."

This is all particularly relevant as we head into finals season. My students are working on final projects and preparing for their final exams and this is the time for them to "fail better". My students have made mistakes this semester, but no matter. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't try again...and again, and again.