A excerpt from my talk at The Juilliard Symposium on "Creativity as Business".

Descarte said "I think, therefore I am," ....but I'm not so sure that's enough.

It's easy and oftentimes convincing to spend a lot of energy THINKING about who you want to be, what you want your business to look like, or how you want your piece of art to resonate. And while introspection is unbelievably important for personal, strategic and creative development, sometimes the best way to know who we are and where we should go is to look at where we've already been and what we've already DONE.  DOING ourselves into existence, rather than attempting to THINK ourselves into existence let's us create a body of work and a historical record of our development as artists, makers and people, every step of which can better inform the next one we take.

The longer I do this, the more I am obsessed with the idea of a "body of work". That we are not defined by one singular piece of creation, but by a collective body of works that together define a maker's life. How many of you know someone, or perhaps are someone who has that one perfect idea but have never been able to complete it because you can't figure out how to make it perfect enough!? I propose that the next idea is jsut as likely to be perfect too, and that the only way to move towads "perfection" is to create things that don't quite live up the mark, learn form those experiences and try again. If it's really working right, you'll almost never hit "perfect" because each idea will be more interesting or more complex and so you'll have to level up your abilities once again.

A Body of work is a STRIVING towards, an act of DOING that is undeniable and leaves a trace telling you both where you've been and where you're headed.