Some remarks on being stuck, with digressions on David Hockney, developing style, and gardens

Henrik Karlsson · 10 Sept 2026 · henrikkarlsson.xyz ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Henrik Karlsson did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Feeling highly generative during a phase of creative experimentation tends to coincide with producing nothing of finished, production-grade quality.

Their wordsWhen you're in a phase of experimentation, it's not particularly surprising that you will feel very generative and, at the same time, that nothing will be of production-grade quality, so to speak.
Our reading
Photographs do not represent the world the way human perception actually experiences it.

Their wordsThe problem with his old images, and with photography, was that that is not at all what the world looks like to us.
Our reading
A long life gives enough time to try many different pursuits, get confused, and start over more than once.

Their wordsBut life, if we're lucky, is very long. We have plenty of time to try different things, to live different lives, to be confused, and figure things out, and then be confused again.