Dumpster Diving

The other night, I was reading the November 2016 edition of Harvard Business Review.  On the last page of the magazine was an interview with performance artist Marina Abramovic.  I had never heard of her, but the certainty of the look on her face in the picture accompanying the interview intrigued me.  There was a challenge and confidence in her eyes that I was instantly curious about.  In one portion of the article, she discusses a unique exercise that the does with young artists. She has them sit at a table with a 1,000 pieces of blank paper and write their ideas.  They then group them and throw the bad ones in the trash.  The part that has clung to me the past few days is when she said, "But in the end, I only look in the trash.  It's a treasure of everything they're afraid of and should do."

I have rolled that idea in my mind many times since I read it.  It reminded me of one of my favorite stories, Ish, by Peter Reynolds.  In the story, a young boy, Ramon, loves to draw but grows frustrated with his art after his drawings are ridiculed by his brother. To Ramon's surprise, he discovers his little sister taking his crumpled pictures from the trash to create a gallery on her bedroom wall. He discovers the freedom that comes from expressing himself and his ideas and thoughts and feelings in his own way.

So....what ideas have I crumpled up and thrown away because someone didn't like them or was uncomfortable with them or didn't understand them? What am I afraid of doing?  or thinking? or trying? or saying? or creating?

What if I did it, or thought it, or tried it, or said it, or created it anyway?

I think I will.

Welcome to my blog....a gallery of crumpled art.