Rachel's Viewfinder
Metamorphic rocks are rocks that have been transformed from one type of rock into another. Shale into slate, for example. What it takes, is heat and pressure. The metamorphic process transforms other rocks and minerals into something else. Something stronger. Something beautiful. For the artist, it is no different. Heat and pressure can make for better art.
The past month and a half, most of my time has been spent editing a wedding video for some friends of mine. Already having a 9-5 job producing videos, it can be difficult to pick up another video project after coming home for the night. But my friends’ video was eight months late. After saying, “Oh it will be done by [insert date]” too many times, I finally had to put my foot down. It was time to make and stick to a deadline.
Deadlines, despite all outward appearances, are a form of discipline. Just as practice times at regularly planned intervals increases creativity, a deadline for a project forces creativity. There’s something about a deadline that demands the mind to do something to make it happen. The increased pressure “ups the ante” on the project. You have to focus, or you’ll never make your deadline.
Focusing on a project to the exclusion of other things is not always fun. For the past month and a half, I haven’t touched much else and it’s been frustrating. I want to do the “other stuff” that’s rambling around in my head. Instead, my deadline forces the project to get finished. Now, for the first time in eight months, I can tell my friends, “Hey! It’s done!” How many unfinished projects are lying around your art space/craft room/house? If you’re like me, far too many. Deadlines can keep you from saying to yourself, “But I never seem to get anything finished.”
Having a deadline does not mean that if you don’t make it, you’ve failed and that’s all there is to it. That you’re no longer an artist. Meeting deadlines provide discipline, but should never be a measurement of success. Only a finished project should define who you are as an artist. I finished one part of the wedding video by my deadline. The second half is nearly done. Instead of stressing over a few extra days, extend the deadline. But don’t make extending deadlines a habit. That leads to procrastination, and the pile of unfinished projects.
Heat and pressure are not always fun to work under. But they can produce stunning results. For the artist, it transforms a pile of unfinished projects into completed works of art. For rocks, it transforms coal into diamonds.
