So yesterday I was watching the Food Network Challenge, and on came the "Cereal Bridge Challenge." It was exactly what it advertised, four contestants struggling to create a bridge replica out of mostly rice rispy treats.
As the talented cooks were showing their ideas and creating them in the time of 8 hours, something incredible happened: They all struggled to keep their bridges standing, despite all of their talent, 2 out of 4 bridges fell. And what really detrimented their ability was more of a character flaw than a technical one.
Artist one, some stoner/hippie/crazy gallery artist had the idea that they were going to put a bridge on its side and have little fishes eat it. To develop her idea, she cheated and used an iron structure she already made and started wrapping seaweed around it. People wondered "Sea Weed and Rice Crispy Treats?" and she said
"If you dun like, hon, you just don't know good art when you see it!"
type thing. Anyways, her giant bridge humiliation crashed and burned halfway through because she couldn't listen to people and get her head out of her image, and left the bridge standing on its side instead of just sitting it upright like a normal person. So, she spent the rest of the time harrassing everyone else because if she was going to go down she was going to bring other people with her. "Why does everyone take this so seriously!" She wonders...maybe because she just lost 10,000 dollars?
Anyways, Artist 2, some hard core I-only-do-it-my-way Artist saw what she was doing with wire and aluminum and was less than polite in admitting
"a
true chef never uses anything but Edible ingredients."
So she goes to make her Bridge, and chooses the San Fran goldgen Gate, mostly because its super long and therefore prestigious. Like a
true Chef would do.
However, her soggy crispy treats, no matter how long she crisped them under the broiler, sagged hopelessly under the weight of their own long bodies. The girl kept trying, refusing to use anything but food and doing it the way she learned and the way they have done it for 1000s of years or whatever and the Golden Gate tanked shortly after the Beastly Seaweed contraption.
Artist 3 grew up in London and wanted to make the London Bridge. Only problem, is that the London bridge is extremely delicate, and everything that should have taken him 5 minutes took 30 minutes.
"I just want to make everything perfect." he said, "Which means I need a lot of details. Details is how you win." So the man put his details all over his crispy treat/cardboard frame, never making it to the suspensions of the bridge because he thought they weren't perfect, so he left them all off. It was standing, but he turned it in unfinished.
Artist 4 had done one of the challenges before and admitted that he had lost because he did something unfinished. He made the Boston Bridge, hearty and crispy-treat worthy, spray painted the whole thing with chocolate, and it was ugly. However, as he went through creating the ugly thing bit by bit while everyone else had something glamorous in its way, he went at a pace he could do. The peice was done, the piece was finished, and he was astonished to look around and realize that the contest was really just between him and Artist 3.
So, Artist 3 and Artist 4 walk up to the plate and who won 10,000 dollars? The Artist with better skill who didn't finish, or the artist who made a peice that was sort of boring, but at least complete?
Artist 4.
It hit me in a funny way. I always get stuck on details so often, but really...really I just need to finish what I started and get out there. Otherwise I'll look pretty but outside of art, unfortunately (and I know, I live with an engineer) no one notices all those little things if its unfinished. I kind of hate but love it and need to remind myself of it.
