Tag Archives: creativity

Invest Your Agony in Ecstasy

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While reaching up to smear off an unsatisfactory cloud-form she had just swirled on, Gail voiced our mutual frustration. “Why does creative work,” she wanted to know, “always demand that you give everything?”

On this third day of practice—one more than we had planned for—we were both tired and more than a bit discouraged that it was taking so long to develop our technique. Thinking we had perfected it, we had begun the final test of rendering it on an actual piece of sky (a 4-by-8 sheet of masonite attached to the ceiling of my studio). But there we stood, the test having failed, still wondering how to get the precise effect we had envisioned so clearly in our minds.

Its not as if we were novices, though. Nor that we had not already worked hard. My partner for this job was an accomplished muralist.  both of us had successfully completed a number of sky-finishes in a variety of styles.  And between the two of us, we had a rich compliment of skills.

Then there was all our preparation. Beyond the class-time each of us had devoted to learning this finish, we had done a fair amount of research—studying cloud-forms in books (and on our various commutes!), taking pictures of actual clouds, analyzing a number of artist’s renderings, and consulting with colleagues. We had even researched and ordered a custom-made brush from a company in England! What resources could we possibly have that we had not already tapped dry?

But, of course, despite our experience and study, we had taken on a challenge. While we had each done sky finishes before, the style and scale of this project was new. The space was a great room with a 16-foot, box-beam ceiling which measured approximately 24-foot square. And we wanted the box-beam frame to seem like a skylight, as if the spaces between the beams were covered with glass. The finish, then, had to appear as realistic as possible.

“Why is it that creative work always demands that you give everything?”  This question is worth pondering.  What it highlights that is distinctive to creative work is the inevitable, frequently overwhelming struggle one finds oneself dragged into when engaged in this kind of work.  I will call it the creative struggle…though one might be tempted to call it an ordeal.  And though the terms might sound extreme, this struggle can sometimes be downright agonistic.  Invoking this word, agony, call to mind a phrase that has become something of a cliche in the art world and beyond, that is, “the agony and the ecstacy.”

The Contrast Between Agony and Ecstacy


Why does the word “agony” go so well with the word “ecstacy”?  I suggest there is something like a karmic relationship between these terms that justifies associating them together.  That is to say, it is the agony that makes possible the ecstacy.  Yes, I do seem dangerously close to invoking yet another cliche, namely, “no pain, no gain.”  But before my reader lets out a groan and throws the magazine across the room, let me explain.

Consider, first, ecstacy.  The word itself is derived from ex-, meaning out, and -stasis, meaning center, standing, or sameness.  Ecstasy is the experience of being transported away from the center, away from sameness.  When put in relation to agony, it suggests the experience of having faced a seemingly insurmountable barrier or limitation and having overcome it.  The experience is exhilirating.  To have a deeply ecstatic experience is to be renewed in one’s spirit.

Creative work can be exhilirating in this way.  When Gail and I overcame the limitations in our technique, we were rewarded with the, always surprising, experience of seeing our efforts come to life, our agony transformed into ecstacy.  As the ceiling began to look less and less like a ceiling and more like a sky, we became inspired with new energy.  As we became confident of our technique, we lost the initial stiffness with which we had applied the paint previously, and we began to play, experimenting with variations, enjoying the task, being playfully child-like.  This energy got infused into the clouds themselves, bringing them to life.  Gradually, we became separated from this work which had taken on a life of its own, even though we had created it!

Our satisfaction, in turn, was not unlike that of a mother who looks at her newborn child and mits that this life must be a gift. Even though she had endured the pains of birth, this life she is holding has a centeredness of being that is independent of her.  It is this otherness of being that any authentic act of creativity produces; it brings the work to life. Though not as emotional as the words suggest, there is an ecstatic satisfaction to this kind of work.

But how does one get to this point of satisfaction? As T.S. Eliot says in The Four Quartets, “one must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.” To achieve ecstasy, one must often go through agony. But agony is the kind of pain we associate with death. What kind of death, one might wonder, leads to ecstatic satisfaction?

In creative work, we are required to reach beyond ourselves, to do some-thing we have never done before, to do something new. But to do some-thing new, we must simultaneously let go of something old. And this letting-go, which is a kind of death-experience, is what accounts for the agony. Letting go of the familiar is agonizing because we are comfortable with old ways.  Their familiarity lends them an, albeit illusive, sense of safety and security.  And they are easy.  We know what to expect with old ways, and we know how to produce it without any chance of failure.  New ways, on the other hand, have to be discovered.  There is a lot of risk–one doesn’t know if they will work. And because everything is new, nothing can be done on auto-pilot. Depending on the depth of creativity it involved, this labor can be agonizing.

Investing Agony in Ecstacy

But not all pain is gain.  Beating one’s head against a wall, for instance, won’t make a person any less rigid in his thinking.  Nor does every kind of agony lead to ecstacy.  In order to invest our agony in ecstasy, we need to orient ourselves properly during the creative struggle.  I want to suggest several guidelines that will give direction to this investigation.

1.  Perseverance.  Simply recognizing and accepting the creative struggle as a normal part of the creative process, rather than allowing it to become an occasion for self-doubt, significantly reduces the difficulty of the struggle. And once we recognize the creative struggle as a normal part of the process, we can more easily find the resolve to persevere. There is a simple kind of genius which is accessible to almost anyone; it is the genius that comes simply from persevering. I like the way Frederick Nietzsche expressed this thought when he said “A long obedience in the same direction has rarely failed… to accomplish something of significance.”

An important point at which perseverance is most needful is when the work seems to come to a standstill. Fortunately for myself, this has happened often enough that I have come to recognize it for what it is. Precisely when I am working the hardest but seem to be making the least visible progress—that is when I am doing the deepest work. If I am working (as opposed to just spinning my wheels; admittedly, the difference is difficult to detect), work is being done, whether I can see the immediate results or not. It is at this point in any creative work that it is good to remember Winston Churchill’s advice: “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”

2. Mindfulness.  Because the creative struggle involves the breaking down of habitual patterns so as to create something new, the mindlessness we come to rely on to sustain our habits has to be replaced by mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the state of being  fully present in the moment. But to be mindful does not mean to be focused in a mode of drivenness.  Whereas a driven form of attentive is fixed on a single goal, mindfulness is completely open-ended. In this sense, it is leisurely. Mindfulness draws on what the Zen philosopher, Suzuki, calls “beginner’s mind.” “In the beginner’s mind,” writes Suzuki, there are many possibilities. But in the mind of the expert there is only one.” It is this openness of beginner’s mind that is characteristic of the focal point for mindfulness.

Gail and I looked at a lot of clouds in the process of doing our finish. The longer we looked, the more we were able to see what is actually there. By setting aside our expert-mind—”I know what a cloud looks like!”— and taking on the child-like beginner’s mind, we were able to approach mindfulness. The infinite possibilities of creative perception opened up for us as we moved from habitual at-tentiveness to mindfulness.

3. Grab Anything…Including the Kitchen Sink! Why does creative work demand that we give everything? Well, actually, it doesn’t. It just seems that way. And it seems that way because creative work asks us to draw upon a wider sphere of resources than we are comfortable drawing upon. Because this is so exhausting, it seems like we are being asked to give everything.

When we approach any given task, we establish parameters of resources that may be relevant to this task. But we are relying mostly upon past experience of similar tasks in setting the parameters of what we consider the relevant resources. What happens, then, when our re¬sources don’t seem to be equivalent to the task?

The decorative finishing field is no stranger to this problem.  Consider, for instance, the task of applying paint to whatever surface we are decorating.  The most recognizable tool for the job, the paintbrush, just won’t do for a vast majority of the effects we hope to achieve in the field of decorative finishing.  And that is why decorative artists have thrown down their paint brushes and have picked up everything short of the kitchen sink–plastic wrap, cork, pieces of potato, chamois, sea sponges, credit cards, combs, steel wool, the palm of one’s hand.

Creative work asks us to break free of habitual expectations about how we are going to accomplish a given task. For this reason, our expectations of the skills, tools, materials, and other resources that are relevant to the job have to be called into question.  They may very well be a good place to start.  But once one finds oneself deep into the creative struggle, the best way to proceed is to engage in a mode of proactive resourcing, pulling out all the stops so as to draw upon any experience, memory, resource, tool or material that has even the faintest possibility of usefulness.

The most obvious way Gaind and I made use of this proactive resourcing was when I drew upon my love of quotations and cliches, a fascinations that is more of a part of my academic background than my work in the decorative finishes.  An explanation of the context will illuminate the importance of pulling out all the stops in the midst of the creative struggle.

“Ah, But a Man’s Reach Should Exceed His Grasp …

or what’s a heaven for?” This quote by the poet Robert Browning is printed on the wall in this picture. I believe I first learned it during a class titled “Oral Interpretation of Poetry” which I took during graduate school. Browning was one of the po-ets we studied.

How this quote made its way into this project happened this way. Our client for this job has a good sense of humor. Wanting to incorporate a bit of her own whimsy into this project, she focused her attention on this corner of the room which is conveniently framed by the bulkhead shelf and wall. It provided an appropriate canvas for her “deconstructed sky.” What she wanted was for the sky finish to extend down the wall, but to remain unfinished. The idea was to suggest that the painter had simply given up in the middle of this extended section of sky. He had left it unfinished. The illusion seemed incomplete. I didn’t think people would be able to interpret what was going on in this corner. But I didn’t know quite what to do. As I tried to expand my recollection of resources that might help me find a solution, I suddenly recollected this quote from my study of Browning.

It seemed a fitting quote, not only for the space itself, but also for the client, who is a published author and, at the time we were working with her, was considering furthering her education in poetry. Ironically, the quote also seems appropriate as a final response to Gail’s question. Why does creative work always demand that we give everything? Because, as Robert Browning would say, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

Oops@#$@#! Huh??? Ahah!!! (Part Two)

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Accidents happen… which is sometimes a good thing. When the plans we had made get thwarted in ways that direct our attention toward something better than we had intended, we call it a “happy accident.” This kind of experience is particularly common for persons engaged in exploratory tasks, such as artists and inventors.

As I noted in part one of this article, this kind of mistake is so common to the creative process that it warrants closer inspection. What is it about these kinds of “accidents” that lead to discoveries? Is it possible to learn from them so as to become more adept at the creative process? Can we distill the insights such an analysis yields so as to apply them intentionally (rather than having to wait for another accident to happen)? These questions are particularly relevant for the decorative arts painter because of the powerful role which spontaneity plays in the creation of many decorative finishes.

In part one of this article, we noted that there is a progression that flows from the experience of Oops! (the ac-cident) to the Ahaah! (the discovery). The critical factor linking these experiences is the Huh???, the inquisi-tiveness of the artist or inventor whose agile mind and curiosity cause him or her to take note of things that happen which don’t go according to some predetermined plan.

Of course, the context in which an accident occurs is also essential. It is difficult to take a positive attitude to-ward a spoiled finish when the acci-dent occurs during the installation process. Even then, one can most often realize the learning experience which an accident affords. But the truly “happy accident” happens during the design phase of the creative process.

“Happy Accidents” of Note

With this context in mind, then, I want to consider something peculiar about the “happy accident.” What I have noticed, from my own experience and from my investigation of other people’s experiences, is that the happy accident oftentimes yields what appears to be only a minor alteration. And yet, as minor as the alteration is, the consequences are large. A few examples will clarify my point.

Joe Gregor was trying to figure out a way to speed up the process of cook-ing dinner rolls. Gregor also happened to be a volunteer fireman. When he got called away mid-task of baking rolls to respond to an alarm, he quickly pulled them from the oven half-baked. When he returned, hours later, he reheated his oven and finished cooking the rolls. The minor interruption of his task had prompted him to discover the method by which to produce brown ‘n serve rolls—that is, to package them half-baked so that the purchaser merely needs to finish the cooking process.

Or, consider Joe Pemberton. He was trying to invent a remedy for the alcoholic hangover. Claiming to have discovered a medicine which relieved exhaustion and cured headaches, he instructed his assistant to mix the syrup with water and chill it with ice. While it tasted good, they discovered it tasted even better when the assistant accidentally mixed it with carbonated water rather than tap water. This minor shift through the accidental addition of bubbles resulted in the invention of Coca-Cola. A small shift in ingredients, maybe, but not so small a shift in investors’ bank accounts!

Finally, we might note that the original Frisbee was actually spelled Frisbie. It wasn’t made of plastic but, rather, of metal. And it wasn’t even intended to be thrown. It was a pie tin, stamped with its name brand, Frisbie Pies. Yale University students bought a lot of Frisbie Pies. When they were done eating the pies but still needed a diversion from studying, they began tossing the empty pie tins back and forth. But, being the civilized students that they were, they were careful to yell “frisbie” when they tossed one, so that passersby would know to watch out for the flying object. This minor shift in purpose from a device to hold and heat pies to a discus-like object for recreation, combined with a measure of politeness, led to the in-vention of the Frisbee. While none of these inventions may have been of monumental significance, they demonstrate the same principle that more substantial discov-eries also confirm—that is, that the shift of intention was prompted by the “happy accident,” and which then re-sulted in discovery, was slight. Stated more succinctly, we might note that invention lies just around the corner from convention. But why is so hard for us to turn this corner? Why must we wait for some accident to happen for us to recognize that small but critical alteration of convention that would prompt invention?

I know what John Cage would say. John Cage made a name for himself by “creating” such compositions as 4′ 33″, four minutes and 33 seconds of silence broken into three movements (each indicated by the silent “piano player” lowering and raising the lid of the piano). His point was not that peo-ple should attend to the silence but rather to the random arrangement of car horns, creaking chairs and what-ever other noises took place during the “silence.” This composition of random, accidental sounds was the intended content of his composition.

Cage’s point behind 4′ 33″ and other compositions which he arranged by means of chance operations is to emphasize how our likes and dislikes and, consequently, our habitual pat-terns of perception and action, all collude to interfere with the process of creation. His chance operations offered audiences the opportunity to challenge their own notions of what is worthy of attention. Why do we find it so hard to turn the corner from convention to invention? Cage would say it is because the arbitrary narrowing of our likes and dislikes combined with habitual modes of perception, preference and action make it difficult to redirect our attention and intention away from conventional frames of perception and appreciation.

This, then, explains how an accident, which I have defined as the thwarting of one’s intentions to pro-duce what one had not intended, can sometimes result in discovery. For the agile mind, the mind that is pre-pared to entertain the unexpected outcome, the accident becomes a means of escape from the limitations imposed by our habitual patterns of perception and action.

Three Procedures

And so, one thing we learn from the “happy accident” is that our habitu-ated patterns of perception and action often interfere with our capacity to en-ter into the creative process. The sup-posed accident yields fruitful results when it redirects our attention and we allow ourselves to appreciate some-thing new. We might achieve similar results, then, if we were to figure out a way to escape our own habituated lives so as to enter into the realm of discovery. I want to suggest three procedures by which one might do so without hav-ing to wait for an accident to happen.

But first, let me suggest a context in which one could easily experiment with these procedures. The decorative artist who is serious about breaking through habituated patterns that are interfering with the creative process might commit him or herself to practicing with a particular technique. For instance., I once decided to experiment with feather dusters. I happened to be working in several Victorian houses at the time, and I knew the pattern the feather duster makes in a glaze goes well with Victorian style. So, I decided to dedicate myself to discovering every possible application of this tool I could possibly imagine to create broken color finishes. By limiting one’s scope to a given technique in this way, one develops the intimate knowledge and familiarity of context which facilitates both the likelihood and the recognizability of creative discoveries.

1. Playfulness. The first way to break habituated patterns is to engage in playfulness. Playfulness is effective because, by its very nature, it stands in opposition to habituation. When a child dresses up as an adult and acts the part, he is not relying on his ha-bituated ways of acting. Rather, he is experimenting with something new. Just like the clothes he puts on, he is trying the new role on for size.

Stephen Nachmanovitch describes, in his study of creativity titled Free Play: The Art of Improvisation in Life and the Arts, a particular kind of play that encourages the diminishment of habituated responses. He calls it “galumphing,” borrowing this term from anthropologists who define this action, in Nachmanovitch’s words, as “the seemingly useless elaboration and ornamentation We galumph when we hop instead of walk, when we take the scenic route instead of the efficient route, when we play a game whose rules demand a limitation of our powers, when we are interested in means rather than ends.” (p. 44)  Galumphing is the exaggeration of actions that causes us to throw off the constraints of habituation so that we are free to test out new ways of seeing, thinking and acting. What would happen if I thrust my feather duster at the glaze covered wall as if it were a sword? What would happen if I held three or four feather dusters in my hand and swirled them across the surface so that they swayed like the hem of a ballroom dancer’s dress as she waltzes around a room? What would happen if I pretended the wall was a surface to be dusted and I just used the duster the way it was meant to be used? Granted, all of these methods are ridiculous. But that is the very nature of galumphing—to be ridiculous! In the context of serious play, this ridiculous exaggeration helps us break free of our habituated and constraining ways of acting, thereby freeing ourselves up to discover some new kinds of magic.

2. Randomness. A second and related way to break free of habituation is to embrace randomness. Staying with the sample of the feather duster, the artist might set a bunch of dusters down on her workbench next to a glazed wall and, without think-ing, grab a feather duster and manipulate the glaze in whatever way comes to mind. The object of this experiment is the same—not to try to come up with a new technique, per se, but rather to try to break the grip of one’s own habituated perception, understanding and action.

3. Unlikely Combinations.  A third way to encourage exploration and break down habituated patterns of ac-tion is to embrace what I call “the peanut butter and whatever” experi- ment. In this experiment, one plays with unlikely combinations. The point is this: If creativity can be defined as the marriage of differences which produce newness, then one might court this difference by forcing the most unlikely combinations of things. The person experimenting with a feather duster might, for instance, try odd combinations of color or medium. How about dabbing a feather duster loaded with acrylic glaze on a wet, alkyd ground of glaze? Or how about a feather duster loaded with graphite powder that is dragged and swirled or stippled over a wet ground?

These methods hopefully seem ridiculous and fantastical; the more useless they seem, the better chance they have of breaking down habitu-ated actions and preferences. The whole point of such experimentation is to break free of our habituated ways of doing things so that we can loosen ourselves up enough to turn the corner from convention to meet up with invention. It’s hard work. And precisely be-cause it seems so useless, it can be difficult to embrace. But the joy of discover which one finds around the corner makes it all worthwhile.

WORKS CITED Hyde, Lewis. “Two Accidents: Reflections on Chance and Creativity.” Kenyan Review. V. 18 (Summer 1996): 19-35. Jones, Charlotte Foltz. Mistakes that Worked. New York: Delacorte Press, 1991. Nachmanovitch, Stephen. Free Play: Improvisation in Life and the Arts. New York: J.P. Putnam Sons, 1990.

Oops@#$! Huh??? Ahah!!! Part One

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Copyright © Jeffrey Ediger 2012

Thank God for malaria.. .or at least for the attempts to prevent it.

William Perkin, an assistant to an English chemist was attempting to synthesize the organic compound qui-nine, which was being used as a pre-ventative medicine for malaria. By accident, some drops of this mixture dripped down onto his rag. Perkin took one look at the deep and per-manent purple stain the drops had created and quit his research position. With the help of his father, he opened a factory where he produced and marketed his discovery, the first synthetic color in the form of analine dyes (the precursors to modern-day wood stains). Perkin’s accidental discovery had unlocked and opened a door no one even knew had existed. But once that door was opened, others soon followed. The result was the synthetic replication of organic colors.

We call it “the happy accident.” Its the Oops@#! that, for some mysterious reason, prompts us to take a second look–Huh???–which reveals something we may not have been consciously searching for but which seems like an answer nonetheless…to which we appropriately respond with an Ahaah!!! (or, as one notable inventer once cried, “Eureka!,” meaning ‘I’ve found it!’) What we thought was an accident has turned into discovery.

This flip-flop from accident to discovery has happened to so many artists and inventors that one is tempted to make mistakes on purpose! But not all accidents are happy ones.  Many are just plain failure leading to lost revenue and discouragement. What, then, is the difference between mere failure and the “happy accident”? Is there a discernible pattern to the latter which we could learn from and incorporate into our work without having to wait for an accident to happen? This would be particularly helpful for the decorative artisan, who is already inclined to embrace accidental events–for instance, the accidental brush stroke that captures a spontaneity of veining while rendering faux marble. The most lively and convincing faux marble results when we don’t overwork it but, instead, we let the paint flow in a spontaneous, accidental way. The aesthetic skill lies in then selectively manipulating the most interesting flows to create real-istic looking veins and drifts.

The task we face, then, is how to expand and develop this availability to spontaneity so as to incorporate it into the design-stage of inventing new finishes. If the decorative artisan can develop this creative edge, all of his or her finishes will achieve that same liveliness we prize in the best faux marble. In an increasingly competitive business where the novelty of a sponged wall has long worn off, maintaining this creative edge is hardly a luxury. It is a necessary part of sustaining a successful decorative painting business.

The title of my article gives us our first clue about how to develop the necessary skills. The “happy accident,” it turns out, is not as arbitrary as one might first expect. It follows an ordered path from mistake, through wonderment, to discovery. But if we look more closely at a number of the discoveries that have emerged from accidents, we find other similarities from which we might derive principles which will help us become available to discovery. In Part One of this article, I will consider two characteristics of the person who is the recipient of the accidental discovery. In Part Two of this article, I will discuss some hidden reasons why accidents contain the potential for discovery.

Consider, then, the person himself. Taking Perkin’s experience as exem-plary, we note that the accident which turned into a discovery did not hap-pen in an arbitrary, out-of-the-blue sort of way. It was related to what he was doing at the time. While he was not trying to synthesize color, he was trying to synthesize something. All the accident did was to shift his focus of attention from one experiment to another. Notice, also, that it did not happen while he was in a production mode of operation, intent simply on getting the job done (see my article, “What Kind of Time is Money?”). Rather, Perkin’s discovery happened while he was busy about the task of experimentation. And so, the first thing to note is that the happy accident, more often than not, happens to persons who are busy about the task of exploring. Its as if the person were concentrating so deeply on discovery that even his mistakes fail to throw him off track but, instead, reveal something worth finding.

How might the decorative artisan translate this principle into his or her work?  First, by setting aside time for experimentation.  The artisan who becomes obsessed with making money, accepting one job after another with never a pause for education or experimentation or even the slightest variation from his or her portfolio samples soon finds him or herslef dominated by the production-mode mentality.  Eventually, this artisan’s work will become stale.

On the other hand, one doesn’t have to quite everything, clear the books for a week, and lock oneself in the studio.  While concentrated times of experimentation provide an important and distinctive opportunity for growth, there’s a less demanding way to incorporate experimentation into one’s work.  A slow, steady growth in creativity is least likely to produce artificiality and affords deeper integrations than the sudden bursting forth of a life-changing epiphany.  Like most of life’s achievements, maturity in creative design comes gradually. For myself, the best way to break up my experimentation into small units that can be routinized is by incorporating it into the process of making sample boards. When I prepare sample boards for a particular project, I set aside more time than I think I need. I begin by rendering the explicit finishes the client and/or designer and I have agreed upon. But then I expand my focus. I open myself up to other possibilities. I ask myself “what if” questions and see where it leads me. In the process of this questioning, I focus more upon the effect the client and/or designer said they were intending to achieve than I do upon the particular finish that had been chosen to express this effect. I call this “creative listening.”

In creative listening, we listen not just to what is said, but to what the speaker would like to say if he or she could find the words. Creative Usten-ing attends to unspoken desire—in the case of the designer and/or client, it is listening to the design that is imagined which is not clearly visualized enough to put into words.) I also recollect other details that reveal the client’s taste— things they have said about themselves, past design decisions that have been made in and around the space, even books I see lying around. All of this material is fodder for my sample-board research-mill. It was in the context of just such an experimentation mode that a happy accident recently happened to me which resulted in the finish on a fireplace surround pictured at left. The designer had skillfully selected two colors for the wall treatments which harmonized with the coloring of the furniture in the room. But she had not specified a particular finish, nor had she specified that they be combined together. She just said she wanted some kind of “textural finish” on top of a neutral background.

When the client and I sat down to look at my portfolio, she chose the feather-finish which is on the walls adjacent to the fireplace. She then asked if I would do the same finish on the fireplace surround, but using the deeper of the two colors the designer had specified. I dutifully complied with this request, but I had a feeling neither of us were going to like the effect. And so, in addition to the specified finishes, I experimented with other possibilities. I focused, in particular, upon the designer’s choice to match the coloring of the furniture. Noticing that the cushions on the couch were made of suede, I asked myself if perhaps the designer’s intention to echo the furniture in the wall finish might be carried one step further—that is, by rendering the coloring she had chosen in a suede-finish on the wall surface.

After many frustrating attempts to render a monochromatic suede finish, none of which I liked, I became a bit more careless. This freeing up of the self from constraints may very well be a factor in the prompting of discovery from accidents. Spontaneity in experimentation is as elusive of a rhythm as the “happening” of jazz in its most improvisational mode. I think we do well to consider the many ways in which the decorative finishes rely heavily upon a performative mode of aesthetic activity not just in the rendering of them, but also in the design-phase. In fact, there may only be two important modes of our craft—preparation and perfor-mance.

When I let myself go in this improvisational way, that’s when it happened. In a random, almost desperate gesture, I ragged on a second color over one of my first sample boards that had already dried. But the glaze went on too heavy. So I tried to lighten it up by stippling it. But I had forgotten that I had just washed out my stipple brush but had not shaken out the excess water. The washed out, stippled glaze that resulted from this mistake created an effect which caused me to cry “Ahaah!” Surprisingly, I had created an effect which not only was perfect for the space but which, oddly enough, reminded me of a finish I had tried, but failed to create about a year ago. (I’ll say more about this observation in the second part of this article) Of course, it took me 20 more sample boards to reproduce the effect! But the end result was worth it.

And so, the “happy accident” more often than not happens to the person who is doing to work of experimentation. One almost comes to recognize the failures of work done in this mode as just another way of going about the creative task.

But besides the Oops#@!, we need the Huh ? ? ? if the Ahaah!!! is going to happen. If the happy accident is dependent upon diligence in experimentation, to what do we attribute the discovery of something worthy of attention when an accident happens?

Let’s consider Perkin’s experience again. We have to remember that Perkin wasn’t trying to synthesize colors when he discovered analine dyes; he was working on a preventative medicine for malaria. What quality of mind accounts for this leap? A second example will make it more apparent.

Consider the accidental path which led toward the invention of Post-it Notes. A man named Spencer Silver was working in a 3M research lab, trying to produce a super-strong adhesive. But it was an absolute, unde-niable failure. Ironically, his adhesive was not super-strong, but super-weak. The failed mixture sat on the shelf in despair for four years until another research scientist named Arthur Fry happened to become frustrated while singing in his church choir. When the markers he used to keep his place in the hymnal kept falling out, Fry remembered Silver’s adhesive. He coated these markers with the mixture and discovered what he had hoped to find—they stayed in place when he wanted them to but, when lifted, they did no damage to the page.

Happy accidents remain mere accidents if they are swept up off the floor and tossed in the waste bin. But Spencer didn’t do this. Even though he could think of no immediate use for his failure, he valued it enough to save it. Along comes Arthur Fry, then, and he not only has the proverbial “necessity is the mother of invention” working in his favor—I’m referring to the necessity of keeping track of his place in his hymnal—but he also has the capacity for inquisitiveness. Sitting there in his choir seat in the basement of his church, Fry slipped into reverie. He wondered. He dreamed. He was curious. AND, he remembered…

Perkin had this same capacity. He wasn’t trying to synthesize color, but he was trying to synthesize something. But when he failed to synthesize what he had intended, he didn’t stop looking. Instead, he noticed the unexpected thing that had happened along the way…which is what led him to Ahaah!!! Curiosity may kill the cat, but it can sometimes yield gold for the explorer. Diligence in experimentation is what causes even a person’s mistakes to become just another part of the process. But the mistake doesn’t go any further unless diligence is combined with the genius of curiosity.

But we don’t have to wait for accidents to incorporate curiosity. It can become a habitual way of going about our business. More important than the individual acts of attending to curiosity, we benefit most from developing a habit of wonderment. The decorative artisan who is working on a design project, for instance, might be walking down a city street when he notices a stain on the side-walk or a pattern of cracks in the cement that inspires discovery.

Nature is another well-known source of discovery for design ideas. But one has to be prepared to find something. Agility of intuition and perception is an essential quality of the explorer. By means of this acrobatic mind, the explorer is able to bend and stretch understanding in ways that allow the mind to leap from one place to a seemingly unrelated place and, in so doing, to discover the bridge that integrates them in a lively way. The discipline of attentiveness in experimentation, then, combined with the agility of mind that is receptive to unexpected, but lively connections are two qualities of the person which enable the Oops@#! to prompt the Huh??? which then erupts into the Ahaah!!! of life’s “happy accidents”! In the second half of this article, I will consider qualities of the accident itself which contribute to this flip-flop from accident to discovery.

Copyright © Jeffrey Ediger 2012

 

Works Cited:

Hope, Augustine and Margaret Walch.  The Color Compendium.  New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.

Jones, Charlotte Foltz.  Mistakes that Worked.  New York: Delacorte Press, 1991.