I think that one of the other solid qualities you have is “doing”. There is the sense of failure that can burden us when we avoid trying. That form of failing doesn’t teach us much. But what you’ve tapped into are the forms of “failure” that can only come from doing and making and trying. It’s a powerful thing to motivate yourself in that way.
I’m currently in a bit of a “not doing” slump and I know I will feel much better if I just make the space to make. Even if it feels shitty and rusty and filled with friction, returning to making flips something inside me for the better.
Great point! The ultimate Failure, the Big Failure, the Failure with a capital letter, is when you stop trying altogether.
I’ve been teetering on the edge of that “not doing” as well lately. I feel like I’ve been just going through the motions. I can’t find the joy and the fluidity that was readily available a month ago. For the past few weeks I’ve stood at my work bench and felt shitty, and useless, and distracted, and not wanting to do it, or be there. It’s been an act of faith mostly, a trust that if just keep showing up, one day the freedom and flow will meet me there.
That’s a good point. I suppose that’s true. But I suppose that’s also the impetus within all makers, or perhaps the impetus within the act of making, itself, the need to fill gaps. The sense of lack somewhere within oneself, within one’s situation, or within the world, and the immense to desire to do something with it or about it.
Even though you hesitate to get started — perhaps that is a function of life/world/stress rather than the art itself. I believe you are endlessly curious to find out what happens when you rehearse/ layer/connect/glue “x+y+z” together on your art table. ♻️ You absorb what works and what doesn’t and drizzle that into future iterations. I so enjoy your work! Happy you are continuing your ICADs!!!
Thank you, Tammy! That’s so kind and gracious of you! I can’t thank you enough for putting ICAD in the world. I there is one thing that I’ve done that has been the catalyst for all my growth and progress. One thing that has super charged my whole creative practice it’s ICAD. I recommend it to everyone. I’ve become an index card evangelist, haha!
You don’t give yourself enough credit. BUT, this is also an excellent and insightful skill to have and claim. I’ve been showing iterations of a simple project, and the first passes are maybe not failures (although some are), but it’s a different angle of the same lens in that iteration builds on and learns from the previous versions. Accepting the process and using it as a catapult is a good way to think about how we keep moving forward. Great pieces today.
Thanks Amy! You nailed it! Iteration is exactly what I was thinking of! Where one thing falls short and passes the baton on to the next thing. Much appreciated!
I shall summons a big hug from the universe, a wink from above- showing you just how precious you really are Duane. Just shift your position for a moment and catch the glimmer- SENT!!!
Not sure I would consider you a failure, work in art galleries should definitely be a massive pat on the back, but we are always our own worst critics. At least you take something from your failures and carry on creating.
Thanks! While I do love the p4ocess, I tend to be very outcome focused, especially in the ways I perceive success and failure. Welcoming failure into the process and turning it into something catalytic helps me subvert that self-imposed, unconscious binary I harbor. Thanks again!
By embracing failure, you are probably more successful than people who struggle doing so. I think embracing failure is a clear path to success, but it also depends on the definition of success. Such a good post! Failure is essential.
Oh, excellent points here for sure! I think that success and failure are both, ultimately, subjective things, and in that regard highly contingent on intentionality.
thanks so much Kimberly! I should have put an asterisk on this idea, while I’ve figured out how to accept failure and unknowability in my creative work…applying it to the rest of my life is another story, haha!
Thanks Neil! It’s certainly been true for me. Almost everything that I’ve discovered in my creative work has come about through failing at something else. Through taking that failed attempt and figured out what it could still be turned into.
failure leading to inspiration makes so much sense and I understand but can I accept this when creating? Perfectionism always has a way of being that hurdle when I’m trying to draw forth creativity.
I know exactly what you mean! The divide between the understanding and the actual act of accepting is vast, and it’s such a difficult leap to make. There’s no nice way to put it, it’s really f*cking hard, haha.
There’s a book called The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler. She talks about the different forms and types of perfectionists (there are many, who knew? lol) She says that ‘intense perfectionists’ “rely on the outcome of a process to define their sense of success.” She says that “If an intense perfectionist sets a goal that isn’t reached in the perfect manner they envisioned, they consider the entire endeavor a failure.”
This describes me exactly! I try things, I make things, and if it is doesn’t go according to plan, if I don’t get the desired result I call the whole thing a f*ck up. But understanding that about myself has been huge. I haven’t tried to change that part of myself, instead I’ve leaned into it. I’ve learned to use it. I’ve learned to hack my sense of failure. I take the thing I failed at, the thing I made that fell short of my desired outcome, I call it failure, but then I ask myself, what else can I do with this? Can I make something else with it? What can I turn it into? When repurposing a failure becomes a creative challenge, it turns into something interesting for me. Because if I can find a usage for failure, a get sense of feeling successful.
this is forcing me to face that aspect of myself and I’m here for it! I want to let go and be one with the process. It does happen though and when it does I ride the wave.
Absolutely! When it happens, it's one of the most magical feelings. I think the trick is just showing up and doing the work consistently, when you're in the in-between.
I like your premise but I don’t like your self-deprecation. Being good at failing is a virtue. Look what happens when one is bad at it (see 2020 US presidential election). But I do think your work is original and I do think it’s good and I know you must like it.
Perhaps none of us is that special. Humans behave so predictably most of the time. But doesn’t every artist dream of being discovered, even at 80 years old or posthumously? Maybe I’m getting off the subject of good failure…
Thanks Emily! I think you’re right. One the things I’m not particularly good at is give myself grace. Definitely something I could stand to improve upon. I suppose that in acknowledging my ability to embrace failure, I’m also attempting to extend to myself some sense of grace and acceptance as well. Thanks again!
I think that one of the other solid qualities you have is “doing”. There is the sense of failure that can burden us when we avoid trying. That form of failing doesn’t teach us much. But what you’ve tapped into are the forms of “failure” that can only come from doing and making and trying. It’s a powerful thing to motivate yourself in that way.
I’m currently in a bit of a “not doing” slump and I know I will feel much better if I just make the space to make. Even if it feels shitty and rusty and filled with friction, returning to making flips something inside me for the better.
Great point! The ultimate Failure, the Big Failure, the Failure with a capital letter, is when you stop trying altogether.
I’ve been teetering on the edge of that “not doing” as well lately. I feel like I’ve been just going through the motions. I can’t find the joy and the fluidity that was readily available a month ago. For the past few weeks I’ve stood at my work bench and felt shitty, and useless, and distracted, and not wanting to do it, or be there. It’s been an act of faith mostly, a trust that if just keep showing up, one day the freedom and flow will meet me there.
Seems like you’re dealing with lots of instability on top of your creative practice so there’s a bunch of pressure on that practice to fill the gaps.
That’s a good point. I suppose that’s true. But I suppose that’s also the impetus within all makers, or perhaps the impetus within the act of making, itself, the need to fill gaps. The sense of lack somewhere within oneself, within one’s situation, or within the world, and the immense to desire to do something with it or about it.
Davin, my thoughts exactly. Movement takes courage ("heart-age") which is no small thing. Taking the next step is Everything.
Beautifully said, Ann!! Thanks so much for that!
Even though you hesitate to get started — perhaps that is a function of life/world/stress rather than the art itself. I believe you are endlessly curious to find out what happens when you rehearse/ layer/connect/glue “x+y+z” together on your art table. ♻️ You absorb what works and what doesn’t and drizzle that into future iterations. I so enjoy your work! Happy you are continuing your ICADs!!!
Thank you, Tammy! That’s so kind and gracious of you! I can’t thank you enough for putting ICAD in the world. I there is one thing that I’ve done that has been the catalyst for all my growth and progress. One thing that has super charged my whole creative practice it’s ICAD. I recommend it to everyone. I’ve become an index card evangelist, haha!
You don’t give yourself enough credit. BUT, this is also an excellent and insightful skill to have and claim. I’ve been showing iterations of a simple project, and the first passes are maybe not failures (although some are), but it’s a different angle of the same lens in that iteration builds on and learns from the previous versions. Accepting the process and using it as a catapult is a good way to think about how we keep moving forward. Great pieces today.
Thanks Amy! You nailed it! Iteration is exactly what I was thinking of! Where one thing falls short and passes the baton on to the next thing. Much appreciated!
“Life is pretty simple; You do stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works.” (Leonardo da Vinci)
Perfect!! Love that! Stealing it! Thanks Richard!
I shall summons a big hug from the universe, a wink from above- showing you just how precious you really are Duane. Just shift your position for a moment and catch the glimmer- SENT!!!
Got it! Much appreciated! ;-)
From one minute to the next, we struggle with our heads but you are right...we must go through the process and voile....success comes.
Well said! Thank you!
Not sure I would consider you a failure, work in art galleries should definitely be a massive pat on the back, but we are always our own worst critics. At least you take something from your failures and carry on creating.
Thanks! While I do love the p4ocess, I tend to be very outcome focused, especially in the ways I perceive success and failure. Welcoming failure into the process and turning it into something catalytic helps me subvert that self-imposed, unconscious binary I harbor. Thanks again!
By embracing failure, you are probably more successful than people who struggle doing so. I think embracing failure is a clear path to success, but it also depends on the definition of success. Such a good post! Failure is essential.
Oh, excellent points here for sure! I think that success and failure are both, ultimately, subjective things, and in that regard highly contingent on intentionality.
Such an important thing to remember.
So many of the gifts in my life have come from what seems like a failure.
Precisely! Things we would have never arrived at if something else hadn’t fallen apart of the way!
Succeeding at accepting uncertainty is a beautiful thing. 🙏
thanks so much Kimberly! I should have put an asterisk on this idea, while I’ve figured out how to accept failure and unknowability in my creative work…applying it to the rest of my life is another story, haha!
Such a great point about failure being the key to opening the door of inspiration. So true.
Thanks Neil! It’s certainly been true for me. Almost everything that I’ve discovered in my creative work has come about through failing at something else. Through taking that failed attempt and figured out what it could still be turned into.
failure leading to inspiration makes so much sense and I understand but can I accept this when creating? Perfectionism always has a way of being that hurdle when I’m trying to draw forth creativity.
I know exactly what you mean! The divide between the understanding and the actual act of accepting is vast, and it’s such a difficult leap to make. There’s no nice way to put it, it’s really f*cking hard, haha.
There’s a book called The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler. She talks about the different forms and types of perfectionists (there are many, who knew? lol) She says that ‘intense perfectionists’ “rely on the outcome of a process to define their sense of success.” She says that “If an intense perfectionist sets a goal that isn’t reached in the perfect manner they envisioned, they consider the entire endeavor a failure.”
This describes me exactly! I try things, I make things, and if it is doesn’t go according to plan, if I don’t get the desired result I call the whole thing a f*ck up. But understanding that about myself has been huge. I haven’t tried to change that part of myself, instead I’ve leaned into it. I’ve learned to use it. I’ve learned to hack my sense of failure. I take the thing I failed at, the thing I made that fell short of my desired outcome, I call it failure, but then I ask myself, what else can I do with this? Can I make something else with it? What can I turn it into? When repurposing a failure becomes a creative challenge, it turns into something interesting for me. Because if I can find a usage for failure, a get sense of feeling successful.
this is forcing me to face that aspect of myself and I’m here for it! I want to let go and be one with the process. It does happen though and when it does I ride the wave.
Absolutely! When it happens, it's one of the most magical feelings. I think the trick is just showing up and doing the work consistently, when you're in the in-between.
yes that liminal space!
Exactly!
I like your premise but I don’t like your self-deprecation. Being good at failing is a virtue. Look what happens when one is bad at it (see 2020 US presidential election). But I do think your work is original and I do think it’s good and I know you must like it.
Perhaps none of us is that special. Humans behave so predictably most of the time. But doesn’t every artist dream of being discovered, even at 80 years old or posthumously? Maybe I’m getting off the subject of good failure…
Thanks Emily! I think you’re right. One the things I’m not particularly good at is give myself grace. Definitely something I could stand to improve upon. I suppose that in acknowledging my ability to embrace failure, I’m also attempting to extend to myself some sense of grace and acceptance as well. Thanks again!
Your wonderful art and words, always full of meaning and life experience, Duane. An inspiration, you are, those golden cracks...
“Golden cracks” - Yes! Exactly! There’s always an element of kintsugi in the background of everything I do.
Thank you! I'm gad you like it!