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Old Saggy, Aren't We All

 Drawing these barns has led me to reflect on life.  We have limited lifespans, will return to the earth and we change as we age and that shapes our lives.   Life is not perfect.  It's wonderful and imperfect. 

I don't try to draw all the detail or even draw all that well.  I miss lines, dimensions may be off and perspective is not perfect, but the feeling comes through.  Thank goodness not being perfect is an asset sometimes.  In some fields perfection is required (surgeon, pilot, etc.) and there are checklists and backups in those areas that demand it (yes).  I worked in a profession where perfection was expected but not supported (Software Engineering).  There are always lawsuits where some company is not found to be perfect (Apple Batteries, bugs, etc.) even though what they are doing is incredible hard and consumers expect new features quickly.  Do not expect perfection.

I once was in charge of a flagship product for a company and we had just finished coding.  The owner told me that they expected my testing for bugs to be perfect and not take more than 30min!  I almost quit that very second.

But ART is not about perfection it's about being different and lucky for me I'm not perfect.  I'm flying without a net, trying to walk on water and failing and whistling in the dark and it works.  I'm imperfect, my drawing are imperfect and the result somehow touches a cord with people.  I start with a blank piece of paper and a (Winsor & Newton  0.3) pigment ink pen and have at it.  No tracing (I draw from a photo on my iPad), no pencil, it's all in a single go.  Many times I've started a drawing and thought, "well I've already messed this up" only to continue and have a good result.  I embraced my failure as a person whom draws.  

I've embraced the Japanese notion of "wabi-sari".  

In a different company, I once had a boss that wanted everything in his life to be perfect.  That included our flagship product.  I was the only one working on it and doing a ton of work and it was well received and selling well.  My boss demanded perfection by pointing out UI issues and proceeded to dress me down about how they sell this product for millions (yes really) of dollars and demanded I make it more perfect.  My response was "then maybe they should have more people on it than just myself!".  I almost quit right there.  He was a good person, just blinded by his his own vision of the world.

It would an interesting idea to design and create an iPhone / iPad app that is imperfect.  Not in a "doesn't work" way, but in a UI design way to make it interesting and pleasant.  Would that be possible for an App?

To all the old saggys in this world, keep it real.


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