Closing The Gap

[vimeo 24715531 w=600 h=338]

Here’s a healthy dose of inspiration for all you creative types. Ira Grass talks about the first years of being creative, and working through the troubling time of creating work that doesn’t quite meet your own standards.

What I really like about this talk is the positive angle on those developing years. I’ve seen or read plenty of other artists talk about their years of sucking before they got good but never in a helpful way. Ira really focuses on the goal of getting good by creating a body of work and calls it “closing the gap.”

I’ve seen it in movies or TV where the artist is portrayed as sucking until one day they create a magical work of art, now they have a voice or style of their own. It’s like they worked in the dark for years and suddenly found a light switch.

What I like about Ira’s “closing the gap” philosophy is that it recognizes the evolution of a craft. It takes years, but it slowly becomes something good until eventually you meet your own standards.

When looking at your work though this lens you can see that everything you make, even if it doesn’t meet your standards, is a success. You finished it, you learnt from it, hopefully it’s better than the last thing. No matter what, you closed the gap a little bit more.