Mistakes are not all bad in either art or life beyond the studio
My late father refused to either sell his work or get rid of any unfinished pieces. His legacy included many of these works in process. His philosophy was that every piece of wood had a story and an image inside it. Sometimes the wood would crack and sometimes there would be knots in the wrong place, interrupting his preconceived ideas of the way the piece should go.
I find that I often think this way, too, with many things. My life is not going the way I think it should. The people who run the world are not in alignment with many of my philosophies(don’t hurt people, don’t take things that don’t belong to you, be kind to others, seek the good and the light inside all human beings). My husband decides to cook right after I finish cleaning the kitchen. The color comes out of the dye pot too dark, too light, too green, too blue.
One of the great joys in my teaching life is teaching children of all ages( I include children of fifty in this group) to create art. Today, I was working with an eight year old online and teaching her to make a watercolor wash. The light came into her eyes when she saw what the paint could do when it got wet. We keep the nuts and bolts lessons short: ten minutes at most, for concentration, and then paint something fun. Today, the fun project was a tree. It was a beautiful tree! But, she put some marks on it at the end that she didn’t like. For a moment, this catastrophe eclipsed everything.
How often do I feel this way, when I spill something, or break something, or say the wrong word, or commit the wrong action? And conversely, how often do mistakes turn out, in the end, to be seeds for new learning and new ways of doing things, even if its just a reminder not to leave the glass bowl of apples right on the edge of the counter?
The end of the water color story ? We will create collages from paintings “we”(meaning she) do not like, and she made a second painting, even better than the first.
My father left us 235 finished sculptures, and countless unfinished pieces. I have an unfinished one in a place of honor in my home. The unfinished pieces are resonant with reminders of all that is possible in the unfinished and in the “mistake”.
Carol LeBaron
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