Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Student Watches Teacher

I am currently trying to tell my students to sketch more without sitting in front of a computer. I'm surprised by how difficult it has been to get them moving along this dimension. All of them are accomplished artists, yet sitting in front of the computer has rendered some of them paralyzed. And then I turn the focus on myself and reflect on how I spend at least 99% of my time at work with either email communications, face-to-face meetings, Excel spreadsheets, or building presentation materials. I estimate about 0.5% of that time is spent on blogging (the remaining 0.5% is spent eating).

Nowadays the only time I have to freely sketch is on the airplane. I've managed to avoid the growing temptation of using soon available Internet service on the airplane and thus my sketching ritual continues. But I'm (fortunately?) not on the plane every day.

If "boss is waiter", he can't/shouldn't spend his time in the restaurant freely scribbling visual thoughts. Yet student does as teacher does, so I feel the need to make time to draw at work. Maybe I should give up blogging and eating to reclaim that 1% for art ...