pull. create. destroy
I am a high school art teacher.
I am often found throwing on my pottery wheel while my students work. As an art educator, I hear mixed things about creating your own personal work in front of your students. There is the mindset that I will damage their own motivation to create since they see their teacher creating things far superior than their meager drawings. I've head the camp that you don't want to mix work and pleasure.
For me I want my students to see me create and struggle
I want them to see me fail.
To start this series of three, I am on my potters wheel throwing porcelain. Porcelain is a delicate clay body that uses minimal water and constantly needs to be babied.
In this instance, my hand slipped while trying to get the bat off my wheel head, thus knocking my hand into the bowl I literally just finished. Needless to say, I was bummed but I laughed. My classroom had suddenly turned silent as they watched me but soon proclamations of 'oh bummer' and 'oh my gosh Swanson' filled the air. But I wasn't upset, I simply laughed and smiled.
I remember this bumper sticked one of my high school teachers had in his classroom,
"Fail until you succeed"
These words always sound harsh to someone starting out, the last thing you need to hear is negative criticism about a craft you are particularly delicate and vulnerable. But you learn.
When I was first learning how to throw on a pottery wheel, I constantly tried to fix my mistakes. My potter instructor, lovable Don Sprague at George Fox University, gently but bluntly told me that the amount of energy I waste while trying to save that one pot, I could have made three more in its place.
He was right.
Fail graciously, now that's something that is hard to learn when you pour everything in during the first go. But with time, you do indeed learn. Its just getting past that initial first bump that is the most difficult.
It's okay to feel inadequate when you are learning something new, but its even harder to keep practicing at it to become better.