Embrace Being Uncomfortable

Sean Thomas, executive creative director for Jones Knowles Ritchie, on how breaking out of your comfort zone can lead to surprising results

- Sean Thomas

My art teacher once ended our monthly life drawing session with a quick exercise. We first took sheets of paper decreasing in size from A1 to A6, and then lined up materials increasing in size, from a fine-haired brush to a solid block of paint. As the exercise progressed, we were given less and less time to capture the model’s changing poses, with the canvas reducing as each implement grew in size.

It was frenzied, instinctive mark-making that made me feel increasingly uncomfortable. The culmination of the lesson saw us grab a solid block of unwieldy, wet, black paint which spawned – in five seconds – the most exciting piece of art I’ve produced.

For years, I couldn’t put my finger on why I loved that lesson so much, but recently I realised it was because the outcome surprised me. I simply couldn’t believe I had produced this work. It was as if it had just appeared through a surge of nervous adrenaline or someone had possessed me. And it felt good.

Regularly moving out of our comfort zone is something we have vowed to do more at Jones Knowles Ritchie. Not because it makes us money — often that first attempt at something is costly and difficult — but because it’s exciting, and because learning new things is invaluable.