Things I've learned...
... while surfing the jewellery web in the last couple of weeks or so:
- Every good idea I've had, someone else has had, too.
- The same goes for every bad idea.
- Most jewellery out there I find vaguely uninteresting.
- A fair percentage I find ugly and/or *profoundly* uninteresting.
- A small percentage I find intellectually/artistically interesting but otherwise unappealing.
- A very small percentage I actually like. This is mostly stuff that looks like something I have made, was planning to make, or might have thought of but haven't yet.
- Even some of the stuff I like I find vaguely 'boring' - because it, too, has been done before/is being done all over the place.
- So far I haven't discovered anything that gives me the kind of feeling of desperate inadequacy that the best writing I read gives me. When reading, I often get a painful reaction of "I wish I'd written that/I'll never be able to write like that." Not so with jewellery, even though I am *not* a technically very accomplished goldsmith, thanks to lack of practice and experience.
So, to sum it up:
1.) Originality probably doesn't exist - or if it exists, is such a rare stroke of luck that putting it at the top of your priorities is a recipe for making yourself unhappy.
2.) My ideas are neither better nor worse than those of most other goldsmiths out there.
3.) When it comes to jewellery, I may actually value useability and aesthetic pleasure slightly higher than originality and artistic value.
4.) I think I can actually live with being average, in this area of my life. I have absolutely none of the (unhealthy?) ambition here that I have when writing.
Also:
If I'm completely honest with myself... I don't think I care about university half as much as I care about goldsmithing. Considering I've almost completely abandoned goldsmithing in the last few years, (at least nominally) for the sake of university, that is an alarming thing to realise. (I already knew that I cared about writing far more than I cared about uni, which is also alarming.)
One conclusion to draw from this that I should abandon any idea I still have of doing a Ph.D.
The other conclusion is that I need to find a way to integrate goldsmithing into my life again, and to keep it a part of my life - as I need to keep writing a part of my life; both of which may be difficult or even impossible to accomplish, considering I also need to start earning money reliably and in sufficient amounts very soon now.
- Every good idea I've had, someone else has had, too.
- The same goes for every bad idea.
- Most jewellery out there I find vaguely uninteresting.
- A fair percentage I find ugly and/or *profoundly* uninteresting.
- A small percentage I find intellectually/artistically interesting but otherwise unappealing.
- A very small percentage I actually like. This is mostly stuff that looks like something I have made, was planning to make, or might have thought of but haven't yet.
- Even some of the stuff I like I find vaguely 'boring' - because it, too, has been done before/is being done all over the place.
- So far I haven't discovered anything that gives me the kind of feeling of desperate inadequacy that the best writing I read gives me. When reading, I often get a painful reaction of "I wish I'd written that/I'll never be able to write like that." Not so with jewellery, even though I am *not* a technically very accomplished goldsmith, thanks to lack of practice and experience.
So, to sum it up:
1.) Originality probably doesn't exist - or if it exists, is such a rare stroke of luck that putting it at the top of your priorities is a recipe for making yourself unhappy.
2.) My ideas are neither better nor worse than those of most other goldsmiths out there.
3.) When it comes to jewellery, I may actually value useability and aesthetic pleasure slightly higher than originality and artistic value.
4.) I think I can actually live with being average, in this area of my life. I have absolutely none of the (unhealthy?) ambition here that I have when writing.
Also:
If I'm completely honest with myself... I don't think I care about university half as much as I care about goldsmithing. Considering I've almost completely abandoned goldsmithing in the last few years, (at least nominally) for the sake of university, that is an alarming thing to realise. (I already knew that I cared about writing far more than I cared about uni, which is also alarming.)
One conclusion to draw from this that I should abandon any idea I still have of doing a Ph.D.
The other conclusion is that I need to find a way to integrate goldsmithing into my life again, and to keep it a part of my life - as I need to keep writing a part of my life; both of which may be difficult or even impossible to accomplish, considering I also need to start earning money reliably and in sufficient amounts very soon now.