As a youth (and considerably older), I was often victim to a terrible Originality Complex when it came to my art. In other words, everything I created had to be Original, Meaningful, and My Best. As you can imagine, these paralyzing requirements stunted me.
Circa age twenty-four, in a flurry of rage, I had a brilliant idea: defeat the complex by making Bad Art. Not even average—the goal must be Bad. If I set out to fail my own expectations, any result at all is a success. This sounds kind of stupid, but it worked. I made a lot of art, and once I got enough meaningless stuff under my belt, I even started using a little meaning.
