Great Ideas Should Be Disposable

Let go lightly

My brother is quite different to me. He is an artist. Always has been. From an early age he had a practised eye and a deft hand. When we were growing up my brother would draw and paint, while I took household objects apart and never reassembled them.

A painting of a bright yellow daffodil has hung on the wall of our parents house since we were kids.

However, look closely.

If you inspect this daffodil you will see that the paper upon which it is painted has been crumpled. Thick paper was scrunched into a ball, but subsequently flattened out with proud hands.

This is no artistic artifice. This was not an effort to introduce a texture that paints could not offer. Simply, once my brother had completed this work he plucked it from his easel and, to the horror of our mother, crumpled this painting up and threw it away.

Apparently, throughout his life our mother has followed my brother around, recovering discarded arts crumpled on the floor or in bins, and storing them for posterity.

Why would my brother discard these art works?

Simply put, he could always make another. If my brother ever needs a painting of a bright yellow daffodil he has the skill to paint as many as he needs. He has such…