PICASSO AND THE CHICKEN
Have you heard the one about Picasso and the Chicken? If so, feel free to stop reading this and find something better to read. Our tangential introduction of slow learning does bring to mind one of my favorite design stories.
Nobody knows if this story is true. And I have sort of made up my version. But however it is told, the message is the same.
The story goes that a rich patron commissioned Picasso to make a painting of a chicken. Let’s say the guy raised chickens and wanted a Picasso painting of one.
So the patron would occasionally stop by Picasso’s studio to see how his painting was coming along. Each time the patron stopped by, Picasso would mumble something like, it’s not ready yet. Or, I am still working on it.
After three or four visits like this, the patron was starting to get worried. Here he had contracted this artist to paint for him a rather simple request. He had paid some money. And the way it looked, Picasso couldn’t care less about his chicken painting.
In absolute frustration, the patron then confronted Picasso. “Why don’t I have my chicken painting after all of these months? You are completely taking advantage of me. I’m here to ask for my money back.”
At which point Picasso simply stood up, and with a bemused smile motioned for the patron to follow him to a back room of the studio. When the patron saw what was in this room, he was floored. For there were chicken skeletons, live chickens, chicken studies, dead chickens, dissected chicken parts; in short every sort of possible chicken permutation. (Alas, there were no Transparent Drawings, though.)
The patron then leaves the studio with great satisfaction. He knows that whenever he gets his chicken painting, it will not be a facile nor glib depiction. He knows that he will get a depiction with a very high degree of knowledge. And the patron knows that what he is really paying for is that knowledge.
As I said, I don’t know of a better slow learning parable. Picasso, the problem oriented, visual, slow, careful and patient problem solver, takes the time necessary to learn. And only after he has learned can he knowingly paint a chicken
Slow learning. Slow design. Slow drawing. Let’s just be sure that the knowledge contained in our visual and spatial offerings is as large and broad as it can be. After all, if Picasso has to work this hard, just think how hard the rest of us have to work.
What a charming story, and I thought I was already working my ¶•§∞¢£# off!!
Pluck, pluck, pluck Pluck, pluck, pluck Perhaps apocryphal?
Working mostly in the field of failure diagnosis, a similar patient thoroughness is essential. My favorite clients seem to appreciate this, and this who don’t usually move on. I like to be the second or third consultant to work on a complex or stubborn problem, and not arrive much earlier or later in the process. Clients moving onto a second or third opinion are more educated about the matter-at-hand, and more likely to appreciate that an effective solution can be elusive, and and may appear self-evident only in hindsight. If, however, I’m the sixth or seventh consultant in short order, I’ve learned that the client may present more challenges than the building.