Your job is to create. The world will decide what it values.
~ Rick Rubin
Last week, we talked about the pottery class—the students who made the most pots ended up making the best ones. Volume led to quality, not the other way around.
It’s a story I keep coming back to, especially when I think about one of my favorite ideas: the 80/20 principle.
Also known as the Pareto Principle, it says that 80% of results often come from just 20% of the effort. Or to put it in creative terms—80% of your best work might come from just 20% of what you make.
Which means…you’ve got to make a lot to find your gold.
🎨 Featured Artist: Lauren J. Turner
- This week’s spotlight is on – Lauren J. Turner – whose artwork was shared by my best friend. See even more on her website and instagram!
🧠 Creative & Curious Links
- George Inness would have been 200 tomorrow!
- This landscape painting demo talks about starting a painting with design and values – the same approach I’m going to be taking with my Durango Creative District portrait lotto piece.
- This video on painting the texture of hair will probably also come in handy.
- If you want to start selling your art? Here’s a video with some advice on how to begin.
- There are a lot of articles on the Artists Network website, for a few different mediums: watercolor, drawing, acrylic, pastel, and oil painting.
- In case you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at blacksmithing – here’s a video where a blacksmith shows us how to choose an anvil. Especially fun for me as it brought back memories of my dad working at his forge.
- Just for fun, today is “National Mr. Potato Head Day“. Celebrating the charm of a versatile, spud-based toy, sparking creativity and timeless joy through imaginative play and customization.
Fun Fact: Old English had two words for black: “swart” for dull black and “bleak” for luminous black. This distinction indicates that colors were differentiated not only by hue, but also by brilliance in the Middle Ages.
📍What’s Happening Around Town
Here are a few ways to get inspired outside the studio this week:
- There’s an art fundraiser happening for Ray. Both online and in the Smiley Building ArtRoom #10.
- The 10th annual iAM MUSIC Fest is this weekend, Thursday – Sunday. Maps, tickets, full schedule and more can be found on their website.
- Tomorrow is the Ska-BQ kickoff. Live music, food and drink specials with the outside BBQ up and running! Starts at 5.
- Beads & Beyond has a Once-A-Year Gemstone Trunk Show on Friday from 10-6. 1000’s of strands of gemstone beads at incredibly low prices. Bargains on everything – turquoise, labradorite, pearls and every other gemstone you can think of.
- It’s the first Friday of the month, so the ArtRoom Collective‘s First Friday Artist Social is happening at 5:30, in the Smiley Building. All are welcome to come talk, laugh, inspire, peruse an open studio, enjoy snacks and purchase local art if inspired.
- New food place in town – Nourish. Their grand opening is Saturday from 7am-7pm. There will be fitness competitions, free meals giveaways, product giveaways, and door prizes!
- The White Rabbit Spring Book Sale is Saturday from 11-4. “In the White Rabbit Garden we will have a mountain of great books in need of good homes. Take what you need, pay what you want & tell your friends!“
- Also Saturday is the 16th Annual Dandelion Festival at Rotary Park, from 1-9. Join for a free, fun music and art festival honoring the spring wild greens, community health, organic land stewardship and joy! Experience live music, local food, arts and crafts vendors, kids activities, dandelion beer garden, dance performances, maypole dance, live painting, thrift store, and informative and fun activities for youth and adults!
- There are lots of live music events, open mics, live jam sessions, etc, scattered about the area throughout the week. There are too many to list here, so if you’re looking for such things, head over to WhatsHappeningDurango.com.
- There are classes/workshops/projects available at the 4 Corners Gem and Mineral Club, the Bayfield Library, Create Art and Tea, the Dancing Spirit Center for the Arts, the Durango Library, Durango Sustainable Goods, Let’s Letter Together, the MakerLab, Picasso & Vino, the Scrapbook Nook, Seed Studio, and the Durango Arts Center. There are a lot more things happening that I don’t include – so if you’re ever looking for something to do, start at WhatsHappeningDurango.com.
🖌️ Featured Art Supply:
- These adorable amigurumi kits each come with their own quirky name—like Dan the Dino and Pete the Pizza—making them as fun to make as they are to gift (or keep!). Swing by the store to see the full lineup and find your favorite stitching sidekick!
🖼️ Behind the Frame:
- Some projects are just plain fun to design—this one was a playful collaboration between client and framer. We cut apart a Monopoly board to frame this year’s Snowdown poster, and while the photo gives you a glimpse, you’ll really have to stop by Oscar’s Cafe to appreciate all the details in person!
If Picasso only made a few paintings, odds are we wouldn’t even know his name. His masterpieces—the ones the world remembers—were hidden inside tens of thousands of other pieces. Sketches. Studies. Doodles. Experiments that probably felt like throwaways at the time.
But that’s the point. You can’t always predict what will resonate, what will matter, or what will work. The 20% isn’t something you can plan for. It reveals itself over time, through the 80% you might be tempted to call “waste.”
Except it’s not waste. It’s the necessary soil your best work grows in.
So here’s the encouragement: keep creating. Keep showing up. Don’t worry if most of it doesn’t feel remarkable. It’s not supposed to. But it’s all part of the process that leads to the work that is.
Let go of perfection. Embrace the messy middle. Trust the math of momentum.
Your brilliance might be hiding in the next thing you make—or the tenth thing after that. You just won’t know until you get there.
The world needs your art. And odds are, it’s waiting in the 20%.
Matthew & the Art Supply House crew
💌 PS – It’s Spring Clean Art Supply Drive!