Work By Gerard Scanlan 

Flo Jo robot, 15 centimetres tall, made from holly, walnut, smoked oak, cherry, blood wood and wenge. Crate made from maple.

Make or break

You can never know more than you know until you try something new. But if you remain alert you can notice new things happening and opportunities presenting themselves. Even as you go about your routine, almost as though you are on autopilot. Yes so when things go wrong, depart from the plan, mistakes are made, when people don’t listen and when your attention is distracted. Naturally most of the time this just causes inconvenience, frustration, annoyance and even despair. Luckily though when things don’t always go to plan they can reveal a new path. A solution to a seemingly unresolvable issue, or even solve a problem you did not know you had. So how do you get yourself to stop and reconsider your options, see the new opportunities?

Shattered

How many people accidentally dropped a vase or pot, and stood in horror looking at the fragments? Before someone, by chance, thought of using the pieces to improve a floor and so the mosaic was born. Inventing a new way to cover. Break to make. Other people took the idea and ran with it creating designs and pictures. This is how we stand on the shoulders of previous generations, coming up with new perspectives, and the ideas we share freely are there for all of humanity to use.

The greatest discoveries have commonly been accidental because they were more than the person who discovered them already knew. The true talent is in distinguishing between accidents that turn up value and those that don’t.

Choose your path

It is more common in a creative process for things to meander leaving the most direct path on the way to the intended goal. This is part of the process of unintended discovery and the fraying of edges and creation of awkward curves that can depict a tension or weakness we had not known how to portray. The only guarantee a creative process can offer is that if it is embarked upon with a truly free spirit the journey will at least be worth travelling. The rarest of things is knowing you do need to stop sometimes and take in what has been happening around you. Survey the damage and create something new, something more useful or beautiful, something with even more meaning.

So more often than not you have to break it to make it.

Make to break or break to make?