J?? wrote:
"Can you tell me what YOU mean by "imperfection is perfection?"


i spent a long time trying to raise the bar of my work, all the while having
none of the mechanical and other skills of my peers; when you learn
framebuilding in london, you're never far from your dirt floor roots.
all i ever was was a racer who dug bikes, and a dreamer too. i also
have/had a good eye when it comes to "borrowing". heck, who among us
really is that innovative?

anyway, at 5 years into the gig i thought, "another 5 and i'll have it
licked." after 10 i still stumbled. the frames got sold and i had a
following, but i never thought i had a handle on "how it should be done".
i guess i conceded that it'd take 20 years to nail it...

despite the insecurities, i did feel that some of my choices for
materials and design were very correct and believed that some of my
frames - not many of them - were actually quite good.

my dilemna had always been: "why is it that i can hit my marks
conceptually, but in practice i often fall short? do i chalk it
up to that i do it by hand - and due to this, repeatabilty is
not guaranteed?"

again, despite the insecurities, people queued up for orders. were
the frames really as lacking as "i" thought they were, DESPITE the
good press i was getting? why was there such a juxtaposition?

then one day i heard that phrase used during a talk show interview
on an fm college radio program. the three words somehow consoled me
and from that moment on i was comfortable with my life and the warts
i see on my frames. comfortable. not complacent.

while it did help explain away why there are monday frames and friday
frames, i could finally accept that this was "handwork", and as such,
the total package is more important than any one component. (i'm not
certain, but isn't this a gestalt situation?)

fyi, i heard the phrase in the mid 80s. it took almost 10 years for
me to co-opt it on a t shirt. yes - i am relating it to bikes here, but
in essence, it's a life lesson, not a bike one.

the above text is as distilled and concise as explanation as i can give
at this moment. if you asked twice or if i typed it twice, there would
be slight variations.

e-RICHIE