Learning
‘Chance favours the prepared mind’ Imogen Vickers celebrates the benefits of regrouping When visiting artist Douglas White spoke recently to our pupils about his working process he triggered a conversation about the value of failure. Describing how he set out to make a series of small figurative sculptures using wax, he explained to the pupils how he was frustrated because they were not working. Discarding them into a slop bucket of warm water, he left the studio in a huff and went for lunch early. When he returned he discovered the wax had formed a beautiful crust on the surface of the bucket. This then became the basis for a successful series of abstract pieces, and later a work currently on show at the Saatchi Gallery, London. Ultimately he was successful because he recognised that he had an idea superior to his initial intentions. The concept of accidental discoveries is not new. Alexander Fleming’s ability to recognise what had occurred whilst he was away from his messy laboratory over the Summer holidays, resulted in the discovery of penicillin. He prepared a set of petri dishes to grow staphylococci in order to investigate influenza. However, whilst he was away from his laboratory, a mould had accidently developed with a bacteria-free circle around it. Recognising that this was something worth exploring, he
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experimented further and this became known as penicillin. As he describes it, “When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.” It was the company Kutol, specialising in cleaning products, which saved itself from bankruptcy by realising that its failing wallpaper cleaner paste was in fact being used by schoolchildren to make arts and craft projects. This became known as PlayDoh. In a similar story, the pharmaceutical company Upjohn created a product called Minoxidil to treat ulcers, which proved to be unsuccessful. Further tests revealed that it could be used to treat patients with high blood pressure, and the company approached Charles A. Chidsey MD to carry out the research. However, an unexpected side effect was that patients started to grow unwanted hair. It was at this stage in development that Chidsey consulted Guinter Kahn who, with a colleague Paul J. Grant MD, recognised the potential for hair-loss prevention. Minoxidil is now used as a generic medication for the treatment of hair loss in men and women. These stories of how discoveries were made by accident are
