Memoirs of a Fat Girl

Mia is in her final year of the Graphic Design program, and has narrowed it down to the more artistic courses. She’s very talented. Yesterday she pulled out three watercolour paintings, each brilliant in its own way; one a perfect replica of the March of the Penguins movie poster. I can’t even draw my own stick figure.

Mia’s Tuesday afternoon class is Storyboarding. The instructor is a Sicilian dynamo, talking at the speed of light and issuing homework the way a general orders his troops into the line of fire. Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw!

Needless to say, I get very nervous for her in this class.

In a couple of weeks, Mia and the other students will be handing in a 30-frame storyboard for half their mark. I can see the panic in her eyes as the semester wears down, and the exhaustion. “I’m so worried about that assignment,” she said.

Don’t be, I typed back. You’ll do just fine. You’re so talented.

“But I’m going crazy. I’m drawing and drawing, but it will never be perfect.”

There’s no such thing as perfect.

“Of course there is,” she replied. “Look at the stuff in art galleries and museums.”

Silly girl, I typed, laughing quietly. Do you honestly think even a Picasso painting is perfect? How can you even judge what perfect is? Picasso wasn’t aiming for perfect, he was just doing what he thought was right. There is no such thing as perfect, for anything. There is just your best effort.

She thought about that for a minute. “I think you’re right.”

In this case, I definitely am.

“Thanks,” she smiled, just as the Sicilian started the lesson.

I’m a sufficiently practiced typist in that I can take down almost any information, and think about other stuff at the same time. While the instructor went on and on about the finer properties of drawing facial features, the same thought kept going through my head.

There is no such thing as perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. There is no such thing as perfect.

Maybe this can apply to more than just storyboard assignments.

There is no such thing as perfect; there is just our best effort.

Hmm.

Maybe sometimes, I should take my own advice.