I used to think creativity was something you either had or didn’t—like a personality trait or a tolerance for cilantro. Some people were born with it, effortlessly tossing off brilliant ideas while the rest of us stared at blank pages like they had personally offended us.
Then I stumbled into the story of a 1960s art school experiment that completely dismantled that belief—and, frankly, a few of my favorite excuses along the way.
Because it turns out, creativity isn’t some mystical lightning bolt reserved for tortured geniuses. Sometimes, it’s the byproduct of something far less glamorous: repetition, structure, and a grading system that sounds like it was designed by someone with a mild grudge against perfectionism.
The Experiment That Shouldn’t Have Worked (But Did Anyway)
Let’s set the scene.
It’s the 1960s. Art schools are buzzing with existential angst, cigarettes are basically a food group, and everyone is trying very hard to look like they understand abstract expressionism.
Enter a ceramics class—hardly the most rebellious medium, unless you’ve ever tried to center clay on a wheel while your dignity slowly disintegrates.
The instructor, whose name deserves way more recognition than it gets, decided to split the class into two groups.
On one side: the quantity group.
On the other: the quality group.
Now, if you’ve ever been a student—or a human with anxiety—you already know where this is going.
The quality group was told their entire grade would be based on producing one perfect piece by the end of the term. One masterpiece. One shot to prove their artistic worth.
The quantity group? They were told their grade would depend on how many pieces they produced. Fifty pounds of pots got you an A. Forty pounds got you a B. And so on.
No mention of beauty. No promise of praise. Just…make more stuff.
At this point, if you’d asked me which group would produce the best work, I would’ve bet everything on the quality group.
Because of course the people obsessing over one perfect piece would outperform the ones cranking out clay like it’s a factory job.
Right?
Wrong. Spectacularly, Beautifully Wrong.
By the end of the term, something deeply inconvenient happened.
The best work—the most technically skilled, the most interesting, the most creative—came from the quantity group.
Not the perfectionists.
Not the overthinkers.
Not the people staring at a single lump of clay like it held the secrets of the universe.
The people who just…kept making things.
And if that doesn’t feel like a personal attack, you’re probably a healthier person than I am.
My Relationship With “Waiting for the Right Idea”
I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time waiting for the “right” idea.
You know the one. The idea that feels fully formed, brilliant, and worthy of existing in public. The kind of idea that doesn’t require awkward drafts or painful revisions.
In other words, an idea that doesn’t exist.
Because what that experiment exposes—brutally and without apology—is that waiting for quality often prevents it.
The quality group in that class spent their time theorizing. Planning. Imagining. They wanted their one piece to be perfect, which meant they spent a lot of time not actually making anything.
Meanwhile, the quantity group was busy failing. Repeatedly. Loudly. Productively.
They made bad pots. Then slightly less bad pots. Then accidentally good pots.
And eventually, they made great ones.
Not because they were more talented, but because they gave themselves more opportunities to stumble into something worthwhile.
The Myth of the Genius Artist (And Why It’s So Convenient)
We love the idea of the genius artist.
The lone figure, struck by inspiration, producing something extraordinary in a single, effortless burst.
It’s a great story. It’s also incredibly convenient.
Because if creativity is a rare gift, then I’m off the hook. If I don’t have it, well, what can I do? Guess I’ll just scroll for another hour and call it “research.”
But the ceramics experiment doesn’t care about my narrative.
It suggests something far more uncomfortable: that creativity might be less about brilliance and more about volume.
More attempts. More iterations. More chances to be wrong.
Which, if I’m being honest, sounds exhausting.
Quantity as a Creative Strategy (Not a Punishment)
The phrase “quantity over quality” has always sounded like a warning.
Like something you say when standards are slipping and chaos is taking over.
But in this context, it’s not about lowering the bar. It’s about increasing the number of times you approach it.
The quantity group wasn’t told to ignore quality. They were told not to obsess over it.
They weren’t paralyzed by the need to get it right the first time. They were too busy getting it wrong over and over again.
And in doing so, they learned things the quality group didn’t:
- What doesn’t work (quickly and repeatedly)
- What almost works (which is where things get interesting)
- What works by accident (the best kind of discovery)
They built skill through action, not contemplation.
Meanwhile, the quality group built…anxiety.
The Tyranny of the Blank Page
There’s nothing quite like a blank page to make you question your entire existence.
It’s not just empty—it’s accusatory.
“What are you going to put here?” it asks.
“Something brilliant, I assume?”
And suddenly, the stakes feel absurdly high.
That’s the trap the quality group fell into. Every decision mattered because they only had one shot.
Every line, every shape, every choice carried the weight of their final grade.
So they hesitated. They refined. They second-guessed.
They tried to think their way to excellence.
Meanwhile, the quantity group looked at the blank page and thought, “Cool, let’s ruin this quickly and move on.”
And that mindset? It’s annoyingly effective.
Failure: The Unofficial Curriculum
If there’s one thing the experiment makes painfully clear, it’s that failure isn’t the opposite of creativity.
It’s the engine.
The quantity group failed more because they tried more. And in trying more, they gathered data.
Not in a formal, spreadsheet kind of way—but in a tactile, intuitive sense.
They learned what clay does when you push it too far. What happens when you rush. When you slow down. When you experiment.
They didn’t avoid mistakes. They metabolized them.
The quality group, on the other hand, treated failure like a catastrophic event. Something to be avoided at all costs.
Which meant they avoided the very thing that could’ve improved their work.
The Modern Creative Trap: Infinite Tools, Infinite Hesitation
Fast forward to today, and we’ve somehow made this problem worse.
We have more tools than ever. More platforms. More ways to create, share, and refine.
And yet, we’re still stuck staring at metaphorical lumps of clay, waiting for the perfect idea.
I can edit endlessly. Rewrite infinitely. Tweak, adjust, optimize.
And what does that lead to?
A polished version of something that may not have been worth polishing in the first place.
The 1960s ceramics students didn’t have that luxury. They couldn’t undo. They couldn’t Ctrl+Z their way out of a bad decision.
They had to live with their mistakes—and then make another piece.
There’s something brutally efficient about that.
My Attempt at Embracing Quantity (Spoiler: It’s Messy)
Inspired by this experiment, I tried an experiment of my own.
Instead of aiming to write something great, I aimed to write…a lot.
Not all at once. Not in some heroic burst of productivity.
Just consistently. Imperfectly. Frequently.
The results?
At first, terrible.
Truly, impressively bad.
But then something shifted.
The act of writing became less intimidating. The blank page lost some of its power. Ideas started to flow—not because they were better, but because I wasn’t filtering them as aggressively.
And every once in a while, something decent slipped through.
Not because I planned it perfectly, but because I gave myself enough chances for it to happen.
The Hidden Cost of Perfectionism
Perfectionism sounds like a virtue.
It signals high standards, attention to detail, a commitment to excellence.
But in practice, it often behaves like a very polite form of procrastination.
“I’m not ready yet.”
“It’s not quite right.”
“I need more time.”
All of which are perfectly reasonable statements—until they become a permanent state of being.
The quality group in that ceramics class didn’t lack skill. They lacked output.
And without output, skill has nowhere to go.
Redefining Creativity (Against My Better Judgment)
If I had to redefine creativity based on this experiment, I’d say it’s not about producing something amazing.
It’s about producing something—anything—often enough that amazing becomes statistically inevitable.
Which is both liberating and deeply annoying.
Because it removes the romance.
It replaces inspiration with iteration. Genius with persistence.
It suggests that creativity is less about who you are and more about what you do.
Repeatedly.
So What Do I Do With This Now?
This is the part where I’m supposed to wrap things up with a neat, actionable takeaway.
Something like: “Just create more!”
Which is technically correct and emotionally unhelpful.
Because creating more means risking more. Failing more. Putting more imperfect things into the world.
It means letting go of the idea that your next piece has to be your best one.
Instead, it just has to be your next one.
And that’s a much harder shift than it sounds.
Final Thoughts: The Experiment That Won’t Leave Me Alone
I wish I could say I’ve fully embraced the lessons of that 1960s ceramics class.
That I now churn out work with carefree abandon, unconcerned with quality, confident that quantity will take care of the rest.
I have not.
I still hesitate. I still overthink. I still occasionally wait for the mythical “perfect idea” to show up and do the work for me.
But I can’t unsee what that experiment revealed.
That creativity isn’t a rare event—it’s a process.
That the path to good work is paved with a frankly uncomfortable amount of bad work.
And that somewhere between your tenth failed attempt and your fiftieth mediocre one, something worthwhile might quietly emerge.
Not because you planned it.
But because you showed up often enough to let it happen.
Which, if nothing else, is a great excuse to stop staring at the blank page and start making a mess.
Again.