Today I picked up my check for the completion of the fountian. Somehow,
there is no ecstacy in doing so. This is not fully why I take on
seemingly impossible tasks, things that are in the very least daunting
to the ordinary layperson, and quite challenging to the very talented.
I do not know what drives people on the hunt, only to be let down after
the kill. I suppose I love the thrill of the chase, rather than the
final conquest. It is a curse of the well known and infamous. Howard
Hughes and his Flying Boat, Napolean and Prussia, Hitler and Poland,
they all had something in common, they were not satisfied with triumph,
they wanted more. There was hollow victory in winning.
The most dangerous moment comes with victory. Napoleon Bonaparte
15 comments:
You have to remember the ecstacy is in the accomplishment of the fountain, not the check. To watch as the fountain takes shape by your own hands, to gaze at its beauty, the water and fire in motion, that is where you get your pleasure and your sense of triumph. The check is nothing. They can never pay you enough to make it worth your while to do your art. You do that for the art itself, to have created something so beautiful out of nothing. It breathes fire and sprays rain because you willed it so. There is all the triumph in that.
you are so right. it is hard to let go of something you've created, and no amount seems worthy when you would rather keep it, but i will do another and may have to do a small 1 for us. Thanks.
to cool............
John Dewey wrote a great book called _Art_as_Experience_. Lots of ideas in the book but one of the primary ones is that the process IS the art. If you don't enjoy the process, you're a manufacturer rather than an artist/artisan. I imagine that your desire to make another is not so much that you want to complete another fountain, but that you want to be absorbed in the making.
Reminds me of how sad I get every time I finish a good book, even if it's a happy ending, because I have to leave that fully-absorbed state.
I like the analogy. I feel the same whether its 'art' or reading a book. Guess thats why I sometimes think the endings are not good. Thankyou.
Art really is all about the process... that must be why I have ten projects going all at the same time!
yeah, that's exactly what i thought when i read that. hee. i can't seem to stay on track. then i have that horrid habit of having too many things i love to do. did you say sewing? oh yes, i like to make little baby outfits. did you say quilting? oh yes, let me make another one. did you say gardening? oh yes, no fewer than nine zillion houseplants will satisfy me. did you say web design? oh yes, let me tweak that code a bit. did you say painting? let me find my paints here. did you say .... bah. i think it is indecision and the inability to discover what you really want to do with your days! or maybe i'm just true genius with enough talent for us all! hee. as long as my kids love me, i don't care what it is.
yes lotus is very right about the ecstacy of it all. and remember this when your are making my small one also. :0) lee
better be careful, you'll be buying another bench. errrr, i mean fountain!
linnea, is that the same as i do as in never completing anything.
yea well at least i can put the foutain outside.
i want to do up a nice back yard patio
as is i am afraid the rain will ruin my pretty bench as
i have no covered porch.
anyway i am thinkin of striking up a good deal.
i will get a good high dollar sell for byron enough to cover the cost of making two and that second one will be my commission!
I haven't heard back from the lady that wants one in her backyard patio she is building at home, i may have overpriced for her or given her way too much information. I have gotten another call from a local lady who has 2 sons (restaurateurs) in Dallas who want one to begin with at their home and are happy to find someone in Natchez that can do them The only other one they've seen being at pat o'briens in new orleans. I shall be careful this time not to divulge any trade secrets. They are for sale or they can do without.
Also, Bro. Plant is interested in one for the new church they will be building out on the ferriday-vidalia hwy, he thought it would cost about $10,000 but Curtis assured him it wouldn't. hum.
Any others I make will have some additional conflagrations of conglomerates of useless metallurgies so as to confuse any would be copying by some handy plumbers.
i saw the upc'ers on the hwy a couple of weeks or so back, a crowd of them looking at their site and thought perhaps they might be thinking of groundbreaking soon. they've been growing corn there since mama and i moved here. i think it's a GREAT idea to have one at the church! make it big enough and they can do baptisms. *grin* no, really, i think it'd be awfully nice. also you are right abt not talking abt the process to potential customers. just sell it as a skilled craft or art and don't divulge more than you have to. no schematics for sure! and put your name/date in the foundation. be sure they pay trip expense even for the consultation (consultation & mileage & per diem?). you don't want to be out any money at all. good luck with them!
p.s. don't underprice the dallas deals!
i spoke prematurely. the lady designer/contractor called me today and i re-visited the site where they have gas and electrical piped in. i should get owners go-ahead friday. this one is a little more involved, a little more...a little more
going to be real nice! congrats!
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