OCT 8th 1-2-3: Seeking Failure
1: Focused Entry (2 minute read)
As an artist of any form or medium, most of the time we have pretty clear ideas on some aspects of what we are setting out to create.
Whether it be a feeling, an idea, or just a blind shot in the dark to see what comes out we typically know where our approach is coming from.
Then we get the first draft out and take a step back to see what we’ve come up with thus far.
What we have is usually still pretty off the mark from what we set off to make. So we go back to the draft we created and continue refining and ‘working things out’, and we keep doing this until we ‘get it right’ so to speak.
Often times this approach can lead to an ‘over-refinement’ and in the process the things that were right on mark can get lost within all the little changes we’ve made throughout.
After a while we might even just rip the page out and throw it away, deeming it a ‘failure’.
But the reality is quite the opposite. It is just one of the many failures you MUST make to journey over to your first SUCCESS.
It is very common for us as artists to deem these as failures throw them away.
Almost as if the very presence of this botched attempt at art is a monument to your failure, we don’t ever want to see them again!
It can, and in a lot of cases does, lead to us pulling away from our art.
Inch by inch, little by little, and we put ourselves weeks out from ever interfacing with our art!
This cannot be.
So I propose a new approach to these ‘failures’.
I propose that you seek these ‘failures’ out!
And I also propose that they are actually successes.
Small, somewhat feeble, but worth much more than the sum of their parts.
The works you have worked on are failures in the right direction.
Keep them.
Face them everyday and look at them.
See them for what they fail in, and question why these particular parts didn’t work?
But also, see them for their sometimes minute strokes of artistic genius, and also ask why?
Why did this one aspect of this overall ‘failure’ feel so correct?
We must remember as artists that success isn’t measured by how ‘perfect’ a piece of art is, or even how much it came out as intended.
Success for us artists is simply the act of showing up every, single, day.
Do your art, and never stop.
Pick up your guitar, pencil, brush, camera, whatever your artistic tool is, and never put it down.
Conversely failure isn’t messing up a piece of art, its actually much easier than that.
its simply going a day without creating art.
2: Creative Prompts (ex. Write a short story, a poem, a song, or draw a quick illustration of these! Let your imagination run free!)
I. A ‘Forgotten Garden’ full of mysterious wonders.
II. An uncommon ‘last train’ passing by all that hide from the day.
3: Inspirational Quotes From Others
I. “You fail only if you stop writing.”
-Ray Bradbury
II. “I think you have to try and fail, because failure gets you closer to what you’re good at.”
-Louis C.K.
III. “Failure if the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
-Truman Capote