Work In Colour - Work. Think. Live. In Colour
Tuesday 31st May 2011 | 8 comments
Many will know that the quote above is attributed to Blaise Pascal, a seventeenth century mathematician, inventor and creative thinker. Awesome guy, really. (And yes, he said 'letter' not 'blog post'.)
As a creative type, he understood that it takes time and effort to strip back an idea to its bare essentials, to distill complex ideas into simple ones, to get really clear about what you want to say it - and then to say it only once. Years of time, buckets of effort. Just ask Picasso...
Picasso was sitting in a Paris café when an admirer went up to him and asked if he'd do a quick sketch for him on a paper napkin. Picasso did a simple sketch and handed back the napkin - but not before asking for a rather large amount of money. The admirer was horrified: 'How can you ask so much? It only took you a minute to draw this!' 'No', Picasso replied, 'It took me 40 years'.
I can't channel that degree of perfect simplicity (nor draw anything on paper napkins without tearing them...) but I do admire it. The ability to say it all in a single line of music (Chopin's Nocturnes, Bach's solo cello) or a single line of poetry (T.S. Eliot, Mary Oliver), in a presentation without props (Ken Robinson at TED) or even to conduct a difficult conversation without losing track of the central unifying concept.
What I know helps me is working on one project at a time, consciously paring back my ideas, questioning my focus - and giving myself the time to write the shorter version. What about you?
Tag: creativity
Nice one, Joanna! Haikus. Tweets. Leunig cartoons. One-line paragraphs. All say much with little. That's why I dig 'em. And this post. And you. Many thanks! P. :)
Thanks Paul, much appreciated! And yes, haikus, and definitely yes, Leunig (love his work...).
Great timing on this post Joanna. I was trying to find this quote yesterday. Thought it was Mark Twain who said it!!!!
I'm working through this at the moment - trying to achieve simplicity!
Thanks Robyn. I'm sure lots of people have said it....but I think Pascal was first.
Thank you for the information about that story. People often don't appreciate the creative spirit. Yes it is amazing the amount of time and money and blood sweat and tears and suffering artists go through to get to that point ie. Picasso asking so much money for his little napkin sketch. It is something that we often see in many of the arts. then the public looks at the bottom dollar of what they have to pay ie. a measley theater ticket, a music CD, a book, a movie or just being a funnygirl
Nice twist on my post, thanks. Indeed I agree that people don't always realise what has gone into an end product, be it in the 'core' artistic world or in business, or...thanks for the reminder.
I can relate to this quote. When I commenced matureaged tertiary study I used to do 7 draughts of an assignment. I finally was able to manage 2, then computers made it much easier. Practice improved my skill. Focusing on one thing at a time and giving over to it certainly is more productive for me. Other things just seem to fall into place too.
Annie, great example, thank you!