Richard Serra, Spiral Cord, 2001
God Almighty first planted a garden. And, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasure. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which, buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks. And a man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegance, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely – as if gardening were the greater perfection.
Francis Bacon, Of Gardens, 1625
nickkahler reblogged
Wilhelm Bernatzik, Eingang zum Paradies, c. 1906 (via glukauf)
nickkahler reblogged
Bre Pettis and Kio Stark, DONE Manifesto, c. 2013 (via panos)
- There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
- Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
- There is no editing stage.
- Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
- Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
- The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
- Once you’re done you can throw it away.
- Laugh at perfection.
It’s boring and keeps you from being done. - People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
- Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
- Destruction is a variant of done.
- If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
- Done is the engine of more.
Perfection is something you never actually attain, because when you attain it it’s not perfection.
Thomas Keller, "On Perfection at the French Laundry," c. 2001 (via bourdain)
Were I to await perfection, my book would never be finished.
Tai T’ung, "On Writing," c. 1200
Westerners attempt to expose every speck of grime and eradicate it, while we Orientals carefully preserve and even idealize it.
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 1933-5
In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power - until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is - art.
Friedrich Nietzsche, c. 1875
It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.
John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, 1853 (via blinfool)
I don't have any weak points. I had weak points three years ago, but my main thing in mind is, my goal always was, to even out everything to the point... that everything is perfect. Which means if I want to increase one muscle a half inch, the rest of the body has to increase. I would never make one muscle increase or decrease, because everything fits together now, and all I have to do is get my posing routine down more perfect, which is almost impossible to do, you know. It's perfect already.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pumping Iron (1977)