Inefficiency is slow, sub-optimal, a waste. Why would anyone want inefficiency when the alternative, efficiency, could be achieved? Our whole industrialised world is geared toward optimizing for efficiency – faster, better, stronger in less time.

But there’s also good inefficiency.

Freeways could be straight. Straight freeways would be way more efficient. But, designers of freeways shape them with gentle curves because it keeps the driver aware and awake – requiring them to pay more attention to the road. A straight freeway may be more efficient but they’re also far more likely to encourage drivers to fall asleep at the wheel. Winding freeways are a good inefficiency.

Walking instead of driving is a good inefficiency because of its benefits to cardiovascular health and bodily strength. The time required to create a true sourdough bread (and the health benefits it provides) is a good inefficiency compared to the nutritional value and speed required for a more industrialised loaf.

When I first started painting with watercolour all I could think about was how incredibly inefficient it was. You mean I have to paint a layer and then, depending on the time of year, wait almost half a day for it to dry? I found myself frustrated with the process. I wanted to start painting, and keep painting. But watercolour (unlike acrylic or even oil painting) doesn’t allow for that. Digital, of course, is the most efficient – but the most efficient at what?

The inefficiency that’s inherent in beautiful, glowing watercolour is, for me, a good inefficiency (turns out it’s also commercially valuable too). Any other medium simply wouldn’t give the same result. And yes, I’ve tried making it more efficient by using hairdryers and warming pads etc, but there is simply no substitute for giving it the time it needs to soak, and run, and dry.

In a world obsessed with productivity and efficiency, there’s still space for the inefficient. In fact, those who dare to lean into inefficiency might find themselves with a scarcity that people value way more than anything efficient.

I come from a world of start-ups and big tech – a place where it’s all about how quickly you can grow and how much you can scale. If the numbers don’t grow exponentially in the shortest amount of time possible, an investor won’t give you a second glance. I have literally heard people say to those people who fail to meet the bar, “You haven’t got a business in this.”

So what does that mean for art because, well, art doesn’t scale? There’s one of me and that’s it. And so if this is a direct and immovable constraint, rather than focussing on what I can’t have or haven’t got, I focus on what it gives me.

Art and scarcity

The opposite of scale is scarcity, and, as it turns out, scarcity sells. Everyone has experienced this, in fact, most businesses that have reached scale attempt to invent scarcity to squeeze even more value out of their customers. Not everyone can fly business class on a Qatar Airlines flight. Not everyone can eat at a triple Michelin-hat restaurant that seats only 12 people per night. Not everyone can have the ‘limited edition’ colour of the latest Apple computer. If you are one of these people, then it’s not just the experience or product you’re buying, it’s the story and affiliation that comes with it – you can call yourself one of *those* people. The lucky few. It all comes back to selling status.

Art and status

At the time of writing, the latest sale of a painting by Van Gogh sold for 15.4m dollars (it was the scene de rue a Montmarte, by the way). But are people really buying the Van Gogh? Probably not. They’re buying the right to say that they are one of the few people in the world to own a Van Gogh – they’re one of those people. They’re in that club.

And so, what does that mean for the regular ol’ artist who is:

1. Still alive,
2. Still undiscovered?

Well, it depends on what we think we’re selling.

The thing that scarcity allows for is community – a group of people who are ‘in’ and a group of people who are ‘out’. If we begin to think about it like this, the thing an artist sells isn’t necessarily just the canvas, or the recording, or the drawing, what we’re selling is a ticket – a ticket to get in.

Now, if we follow this line of thinking about scarcity to it’s endpoint, the ultimate scarcity is a single piece, just one drawing – absolute scarcity. But the reason that doesn’t work is that there is no community in absolute scarcity, in fact, one of anything means the buyer is probably othering themselves in a negative way, not a positive one.

In 10 years, Van Gogh painted 900 paintings. 899 more than 1. That is an incredible rate of production for a single person – almost 2 paintings per week for 10 years. And yet, they sell for $15.4m a piece now. Why? Because being one of 900 people in a world of 7 billion people and counting is still being part of a community – I’m one of those 900 people that have a Van Gogh and that’s worth more than being the only one.

Art and community

The reality is that there’s no getting around the need to make work – make it often, persistently, and for as long as you’re physically able. That may mean 900 paintings. It may mean thousands. But perhaps in a world of scarcity, the art object itself is somewhat of a loss leader to something bigger. Maybe the art object is a way for artists to build something more important – a group of loyal fans and followers who enjoy telling others the story of their relationship and inclusion in your community. “I discovered them early”, “I was there before anyone cared”, “I’ve known about their work for years.” These are the stories one hears when people talk about their favourite artists, even before they wax lyrical about the art object they may own that got them in the club in the first place.

Maybe, through understanding the mechanics of scarcity, scale, and community, artists are able to do what artists do best – make work that matters – and the selling, status, scarcity, and scale will take care of itself.

I’m not sure when I felt comfortable calling myself an artist. I think I expected some moment of transformation – a day I’d wake up and say, “Hey, it happened, I’m different now.” Or, you know, I’d read a book about “How to be an Artist” and then I’d just be one if I followed the step-by-step guide – 4 weeks to becoming an artist. I think I imagined it to be like some diet book or some self-help book. Maybe if I just changed my social media profiles to tell people I was one now, that would do it? But, no. None of that ever happened.

To be honest, I don’t know how or when it happened. I only realised it did when I started to look back through this journal and realised something – change isn’t slow, we just imagine it to be fast.

Bursting forth from the cocoon

We love a good bursting forth story. A ‘transformation’. But the reality is transformation take time and energy, it’s normally slow and banal and requires a focus on the little, boring things. It’s just that we don’t see any of that in public because all the public cares about is the butterfly.

The question is, what do we need to do to be something? Because that’s what it is – the doing makes the being. One of the shortcuts we have for getting to know a stranger is the question, “What do you do?” What we mean is “What do you do for work?” or “How do you make a living?” And, curiously enough, we respond with “I’m a…”. It’s either “I’m a plumber” or “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a teacher” and so on. Someone asks us we do and we respond but saying what we are. Interesting.

And so if what we do is what we are, then, to be an artist, we just need to do what artists do. And not just occasionally, a lot. No one calls themselves a plumber if they replace a washer on a tap once a year. No one calls themselves a teacher if they share a recipe with a friend occasionally or provide some occasional advice to someone who seeks it. It seems that we already know that what you are is what you do, consistently.

So, what do artists do?

There are probably a million books on what artists are supposed to do to be considered artists. But, I don’t care about those things. In my journey, what I’ve learned to do, consistently, is become increasingly comfortable with seeking answers to questions that no one else but me has asked, and then put those efforts into the public. That’s it. But, it’s also really difficult. It still is. I’ve been doing that for 7 years now and, at some point along the way, realised that because I’ve been doing it, I’ve become it. It may not be the caterpillar to butterfly transformation emergence I’d had hoped it would be but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that with anything that’s as important as changing your identity.

Time is the only thing we can’t make more of. That’s it. That’s the lesson. Use it wisely.

It’s tempting to make projects that shoot for the broadest appeal – something for everyone. After all, if there’s something in it for everyone, then everyone will want it, right?

But the problem with ‘something for everyone’ is that it’s never everything for someone. And in a world of hyper-personalisation, where ads and products are being ever more targeted based on likes and interests, if it’s not everything for someone then it’s just irrelevant.

Because the internet can help us reach billions of people on any given day, shipping everything for someone is more likely to have that person pass it along to someone like them. And if that happens enough, if the work is specific enough and connects with enough of those people for whom you’ve made it, you’ve got an audience.

Depending on what you make, that audience may not be big enough to run a business or get the green light for a publisher, but even if that doesn’t happen you can sleep better at night knowing that you’ve made a difference to a few. It’s better than making a ho-hum difference (or none at all) to many.

Eighty percent of what comes out of my head is rubbish. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. But, it comes out regularly, and I suspect that’s more important.

To work consistently, rather than sporadically, means the feedback loops inherent in learning are exactly lack, loops. It means they can build on one another rather than fizzle off into an ether and be forgotten about. If we forget about what happened last time, the mistakes made once before are more likely to repeated again and it’s much more difficult to see improvement. If we don’t see progress, it’s more difficult to remain motivated. And without motivation, we stand still. Out in the cold. And freeze.

Keeping warm

To work consistently requires an acceptance of vulnerability. To admit to ourselves that, most of the time, what we produce isn’t good work but the work that’s needed to make the good work.

In sport, or in the theatre, we have training and rehearsals. These are the private arenas where athletes and performers spend 80% of their time making mistakes. The pole vaulter fails to clear the bar. The performer hits a bad singing note. But they keep going. They try again. They train at regular intervals – 2 times, 3 times, 4 times a week. They show up to the track or the theatre. They pick up their pole or the microphone. And they work, again and again, to learn from how they failed last time. And what for? So that when it comes time to enter the public arena, the work is as good as it can be; not perfect, but work that is as good as they can produce at any given time.

Visual art is no different, but the arena is. With pole-vaulting or theatre, the achievement is in the moment. For 20 seconds – you either clear the bar, or you don’t. You either hit the note, or you don’t. The nature of the work goes, generally, unrecorded. Maybe a coach or director watches with intent so they can provide guidance, but you can’t see yourself, most of the time.

With visual art, any attempt to clear the bar in our rehearsal is left on the page or canvas – etched in stone, to confront us with our vulnerability: we got stuff wrong.

This is a double-edged sword.

On one hand, the preservation of our failure can be useful because it provides us with something to go back to. Something to compare against when we produce the next thing, or the next thing after that.

But, on the other hand, it can derail us. Preserving failure is a good reminder that we’re not perfect. And, if 80% of anyone’s attempts to ‘clear the bar’ show us, in plain light, that we haven’t, well, that hurts.

We have two options, just like the pole vaulter or the performer. We can stop trying. We can decide that we won’t show up to training today, or rehearsals tomorrow. We had a bad day yesterday and now we just don’t feel like it. It may make us feel good in the short term, but in the long-term, no one benefits.

The second option is to keep showing up. To accept that, with most attempts, we won’t clear the bar. But occassionally, when things go just right, we will. We’ll sail over it. We’ll hit the big, spongy mat on the other side, look up, and see that the bar is still up there, wobbling away high above us but it won’t come tumbling down. And then, we’ll say to ourselves, “Maybe it’s time to raise the bar up a notch. I reckon I can go higher next time.”

Sometimes, curiosity can be overwhelming. There’s so much I want to know about. The vastness of visual art is just one of those things – to have a deeper understanding of how to work with oils or acrylics would be amazing. To make my own watercolour pigments, or craft my own paper. To work on animation cels, or have a deeper understanding of sumi-e japanese painting. To understand the art of comics and visual storytelling seems like a bottomless pit of lifelong discovery to me. It all sounds so exciting.

And, if that’s not enough, my curiosity often extends to realms beyond visual art. I’d love to understand more about contemporary dance – the language of movement. I’d love to understand plants more – their names, their structures, how they work. I’d love to understand music more – to play an instrument; cello or piano. I’d love to learn how to work with wood, or how to knit or crochet my own jumper. I’d love to learn how to fish (beyond the basics).

But with every interest comes a dilution. The constraint of our humanity – that we only have 24 hours in a day, and on average 80 years of life in the developed world – means we need to make choices. The trade off of experiecing breadth versus depth.

With anything, there is infinite depth. Enough for a lifetime of learning.

It’s difficult, no, heartbreaking, to say, “no, not in this life.”

Saying no – the idea of refusal – is often associated with loss, not opportunity. To know that, in this life, I may never know how to play cello, or knit my own jumper, fills me with a sense of ‘missing out’. What if it’s a natural talent? What if I love it more than anything I’ve experienced before? When I hear others play the cello it moves me in such a profound way that it makes me wonder, “is this my calling? My passion?”

Maybe. But also, maybe not.

Because the other question to ask is not what I lose by saying no to the cello, but what I gain from it. Because there are some things that, by now, I know I like to do. I lose myself for hours in drawing – just me, a pencil, and a piece of paper is enough for a lifetime of exploration. If I add colour to that equation (in my case, watercolour), that makes the pit even deeper because colour – the spectrum of it, the science of it, the physiological effects on the human from it – creates a fractal-like infinity of discovery and exploration that could go on forever. And to give myself the time to fully explore those paths, all I need to do is say no to an expectation of a similar depth of understanding in fishing, cello, plants, and knitting and, well, almost everything else.

How to choose when the world is so rich?

If what drives me to learn is curiosity, then saying no to some things means I don’t miss out on learning, I just learn different things. It turns out that, for me, persistence has led to a passion. And I think that’s how this passion thing works. By following a single path – let’s call the one I’ve chosen is visual storytelling – what I’ve realised is that the single path also has infinite branches just down the road – more choice than I can conceivably hold in my head at any given time. And, after a while on that path, I find myself thinking about the music and botany paths less and less and wondering more and more, what lies around the corner of the path I’ve chosen.

I used to be able to swing freely on the monkey bars without feeling sore. I used to spend hours on end climbing trees. I used to play golf well. I used to know how to do quadratic equations, and work out the interior angles of triangles. I used to be able to calculate the volume of a cylinder and program computer games.

I used to do lots of things, and now I don’t. Instead, I do many different things. And so why do people tend to need us to have done something before before they trust us to do it again? And just because I could do it before, doesn’t mean I can do it again (at least not without more practice). Past me had never written a children’s book, or illustrated one. Past me didn’t know how to cook. Past me had never painted with watercolour. Now, I do all those things, and who knows what I’m capable of tomorrow.

Just because we’ve never been an artist or written a book or made a clay pot before, doesn’t mean we can’t do it tomorrow. Our identity is formed by the actions we’ve taken in the past, but, more importantly, the ones we choose to take in the future. There’s no better time to be an artist, or a writer, or a potter, we just need to trust that the past doesn’t control the future, it’s what we decide to do today, and tomorrow, ane day after that do.

What happens when you’re the odd one out – If ‘the man’ said no, you can’t do this thing that you’re born to do? What would happen if you did it anyway? And what about something else, like free-trade? Is it a good thing? If things never changed, how long would we survive? What are the strengths of anxious people or introverts and what if the world knew how to use them?

It turns out I ask a lot of questions. Fiction, whether it’s reading it or writing it, is one of the key ways we explore these ‘what-if scenarios’.

A few years ago, I attended a workshop on storytelling by a PhD candidate whose name I can no longer remember nor find. She was researching why writers write, and, overwhelmingly, it’s always about answering questions.

Being published was (and remains) always secondary to me. What I’m trying to do when a new story or character emerges is I’m trying to answer something for myself. Whether or not it gets published isn’t about whether the story itself is good (although knowing about how stories work helps), it’s whether the publisher believes that there are enough people in the world who are also trying to answer the same question. That, for me, is really the key to determining whether we reproduce an idea 10,000 times or not.

As an artist who deeply cares about their work that goes into the world, letting go is difficult. Embracing chance is difficult. My watercolour practice has taught me so many things so far, and one of its key lessons is to trust in chance.

Trusting in chance

People often remark that ‘watercolour is the most difficult medium’. They tend to say this followed by, “because you can’t go back over mistakes.” And whilst that’s true, it begs a different question – what’s a mistake?

Whenever I’m making something, I set out with a vision. I have an image in my mind (or roughed out on a computer) about where I’m heading. And yes, I try to get it there, as close as possible, but as I’ve written about before, the expectation is almost never met. Mistakes happen. But, like art itself, mistakes are in the eye of the beholder.

If no one else but me knows what I was supposed to do and didn’t, does anyone else notice the ‘mistake’? Maybe to the viewer, there are no mistakes?

A most happy accident

In 1902, a French street performer and magician, Melies, began to use one of the earliest film cameras ever made. Of course, these weren’t anything like the cameras we see today, but almost a hyper-mechanical ‘steampunk’ style contraption of running film over a lens. Think grease and oil. At the time, film was brand new, and the few people that had access to film cameras used them in a very static way – to record basic sequential action for a short period of time (about 90 seconds).

But, one day, Melies set up his camera to film traffic passing under a bridge, and the camera jammed just at a point when a bus was passing under it. He unjammed the mechanism a few minutes later, well and truly after the bus had moved on, but just at the moment, a hearse was passing under the bridge.

When Melies played back the footage, he was both delighted and surprised to see the bus magically replaced by the hearse in front of his very eyes. Melies had accidentally invented the jump-cut, the first real ‘special effect’ of film where anything could become anything or, in true magician style, simply vanish. It unlocked an entirely new way to think about film.

History is littered with stories like Melies’ – the happy accident. Quite often, it is the happy accident that helps us make huge leaps both in new technology but also in the way we think. They are near impossible to contrive because, well, then they wouldn’t be an accident, would they? But, I wonder, which conditions might provide a space where happy accidents are more likely to occur? In any objective view, Melies’ camera jam would be counted as a ‘mistake’ – a thing to fix; the resulting footage something throw away. But maybe it’s worth sharing the things we think are mistakes in case, well, to others, it’s an innovation.