On the origin of a parable in the book ART AND FEAR.

One of my favorite parables about creative work comes from David Bayles and Ted Orland’s book, Art & Fear: 

[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Like any great parable, it’s the specificity of image that makes it work for me: You can picture the dusty pottery studio, the scales, weighing all the crummy pots and failed experiments.

It makes me think of the actor Seth Rogen, who joined a pottery studio with his wife last year and has been showing his work by posting pictures of his creations on Instagram:[…]

Read more: Quantity leads to quality – Austin Kleon