The Bear Who Couldn't Make: A Picture Book
- Published on
We made a picture book called The Bear Who Couldn't Make.
It'll be on sale at Naoyoshi's booth — if you're interested, check Naoyoshi's account for details.
Since I was a student I've made a lot of things — wrote short stories, practiced drawing, tinkered with code — but I've barely shipped any of it.
Looking back, I think I was just scared of being criticized.
When you're seriously making something, criticism of the thing starts to land with the weight of an attack on you personally.
That was the kind of thing I was thinking about when Naoyoshi and I made this book.
The bear works at a small workshop, under an owner whose favorite phrase is "Make it the way I told you."
One day, the bear tries his own way. Everything breaks.
He leaves the workshop, and finds he can't make anything anymore.
One morning, walking around feeling low, he picks up a small broken robot on the road. He doesn't really know why he wants to fix it. He doesn't have the parts or the knowledge, so he sets off in a truck.
A city of elephants. A library of penguins. A forest of cats.
He fixes things, fails over and over, and keeps traveling.
In the end the bear decides I'm allowed to make again, and starts making something new.
Being scared is fine, I think. There isn't much you can do about it.
But if you can come back, in the end, to I make because I want to make — lately that feels like enough.
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