For two years she stared at me with those stupid, bulging eyes. At first, I found her endearing. After all, she was mine. At the time of her creation, she reflected the best of my abilities. Yet now, she no longer felt “good enough.” Her mere existence fed my insecurity, whispering, “Neither of us is good enough.”
On this particular day, as I met her taunting gaze, the sharp focus of her flaws began to soften, replaced in my mind’s eye by beautiful possibilities. “What if I actually started over?”
That was the day I gouged out those stupid, bulging eyes.
You may ask, “was such a drastic reaction necessary?” For me, the answer is “yes.” To shake the feeling of failure, I needed to reframe the entire project as an experiment. Letting go of my attachment to the finished piece, freed me to explore a different path.
When I first started sculpting I was gutted when a piece didn’t turn out. Casually destroying a finished piece isn’t natural for me, but it has become part of my mourning process. Materials cost money and time is too precious to waste, not to mention that I’ve exposed my creative soul to bringing a project to life. Failure is heart-wrenching, but I’m learning that it is a valuable part of the artistic journey.
After a proper period of self-flagellation over this project’s mistakes, I’m curious to reimagine the original work. No matter the outcome, I’ll know that I’ve grown in my creative abilities through this process.
