Getting to Good Enough
Colored pencil drawing of a blue mussel shell (Mike Palmer, 2023) highlighting the shells many imperfections. Original art and reproduction prints are available here.
The pursuit of perfection is a poisonous unattainable, soul sucking goal. The promise of success, happiness, and fulfillment captivates us. If we can just be perfect, we’ll finally be good enough. But it’s a trap. You’ll never be good enough in the eyes of perfectionism. The brutal reality is that the pursuit of perfection will ultimately prevent you from taking risks, exploring, and growing. You’re guaranteed to fail.
I know all this, and yet from time to time, I too am seduced by the allure of perfectionism. My artistic style attempts to capture each subject with realism, to get the art as close to perfect as possible. It’s an unattainable end point. My art will always be flawed and never quite ‘real’. This desire to produce realistic looking drawings drives me to create perfection - spending hours reworking drawings only to find myself no closer to my goal. I'm rarely satisfied with my work. I always think I could do better.
In my previous fisheries science career I’d co-written an article on the importance of ‘getting to good enough’. The basic gist of the article was that fishery managers could never know the truth that they were after. They could utilize tools that would get them closer and closer to the truth, but the closer they got, the more expensive it became. At the end of the day, fishery managers would need to weigh how much money they’re willing to spend to solve a problem against the amount of error they’re willing to accept in their decisions.
This concept of ‘getting to good enough’ continues to resonate with me as a commercial artist. I make money by turning out art. It’s a production business. In order to produce the next piece of work, I have to complete the one I’m on. At some point I need to make a determination that a piece of art is ‘good enough’ and it’s time to move on to the next project, the next paycheck. I need to weigh the amount of money I’ll get paid for a piece against the time it takes to create it.
‘Good enough’ isn’t mediocrity. It’s the best that we can do at a given moment within the constraints we’re given. It’s an acknowledgement of the finite time allotted to a project and the acceptance of any imperfections that may exist. It’s looking forward to your next project and awaiting the opportunity to try again. It’s the constant drive to grow and improve, but never to perfect.
Getting to good enough has many parallels with the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi. Wabi sabi celebrates the beauty of imperfection. It's about appreciating the things that are aged, worn, and weathered. It's about acknowledging and embracing the transience and incompleteness of life. Good enough is the acceptance that perfection is unattainable. It is the realization that it is okay to be imperfect. Embracing these principles, we let go of perfectionism and open ourselves up to a more authentic and fulfilling life. We learn to appreciate the beauty in the ordinary and to find joy in the journey, even when it is not perfect.
After all, perfection isn’t what makes life interesting. It's the imperfections that tell our tales - like the accumulation of scars on the fluke of a whale. The errant pencil marks, poor color choices, or missed detail in a drawing, all captured art and life as it happened. Each piece of original art tells us a story - an imperfect one about the artist, their art, and what happened during its creation.
