Sharing a Failure

in #art7 years ago

We are not supposed to share our failures. Only our shining successes.

I have been working on this piece, working on making it look better, when it suddenly hit me. “You are wasting your time. This isn't it.”

Failure

You know why?

Because it is a product of the mind and, at least for me, painting doesn't work that way. I am bored out of my mind! (Spontaneously chosen words, but ha! Interesting.)

Anyway, this is a piece which has been discontinued. Discarded. Let go. It is effectively thrash. It is that for me. (Thrash is that which we no longer need, and therefore throw away.) It is also a wonderful reminder, and it is educational. So many words can be chosen to describe anything. Even a failure!

Sometimes we get hung up on words... hung up on the mind level. In retrospect, such times are quite grotesque. When nothing flows. The opposite of bliss. The opposite of creativity, and creation. And dreadfully boring!

I will share another piece with you later today. Something that seemed worth keeping. 

Until then!

Sabina Nore

Sabina Nore
www.SabinaNore.com
@anibas
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Know that feeling so well, and I think we need to shared also bad works and failures...No one is perfect, right? It's that moment when you need to stop, knowing you are eating your time with something that will never be good or take you on a journey @anibas..Only, it's hard to say stop, trash it :))

It gets easier with practice, maybe. Actually, for me, it has been rather the opposite. You see, a long time ago, I used to be in the habit of throwing away almost all my artworks. Almost nothing was good enough, and I was quite ruthless towards my creations. So, part of my journey has been to allow others to look at things, even if I don't consider that which I created to be perfect or good enough.
To embrace imperfection, as part of the journey rather than as the destination.
It was something that was mine, and I didn't have a name for it, but when I came across Wabi-sabi and Kintsugi, I though, "Yes. That."

All the while, continuing to work and to explore...

Thank you for your comment, and for allowing me to elaborate! :)

You are welcome since the story is very similar here with trashing everything..Now days, some of those who were meant to be ''killed'' are left for rest for some time and than some of them later, after working on become something I am thrilled with. Some still stay trash, but it's journey with different paths @anibas :)

Strange how one artists "thrash" is another's "threasure" . Despite my strange desire to add an eyeball and a fluffy lilac monster, I see so much beauty in the simplicity of this image. There is something to be said of minimalism, this piece is calming and inspires the imagination. Perhaps you have been looking at it too long and might bring it out again one day and see it's real beauty?

Perhaps.
All of this various feedback I have received today reminds me of a conversation from a few days ago, here on Steemit, where @mira13 wrote:
"Art changes the beholder, but the experience of the beholder, at least sometimes, also influences the artist."

Maybe this is one of those times. We'll see. :)
Thank you @twirble!

Actually I like this one. :) It makes me thinking what is trash for us. Somebody's trash is for somebody else a treasure. Your text is thought provoking and a good reminder to be in flow with life. If we wouldn't be able to let go of things, thoughts, attitudes...there wouldn't be place for new things to come. Good writing.

Yes... One man's trash is another man's treasure."
Reading such statements sometimes (often) makes me wonder: "Ok. If that is one man's thrash, then what is one woman's thrash?" :)

what is one woman's thrash?
say: "Homo Sapiens trash" to be gender neutral ...... one small step for ........ ooooops
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/man-mankind-or-people
"Human Being" - this what Chief Dan George calls his own people, to differentiate from Whites. (in "Little Big Man")

It's a joke, not a feminist manifesto. :)
Little Big Man was a wonderful movie.

haha, so we were "joking" each other ........ may the goddess have mercy on us.
btw - I had the privilege to meet Chief Dan George in person on a trip to the BC coast. That was long ago, I was still married to my first Native Cree wife. He almost totally ignored me and spoke mostly with Mary Jane.

I am exactly the opposite. I never throw anything away. In time, there may be a use for it. I had put aside some larger canvases before because they were not working out, but then I discovered some nice details, cut them out and used them for smaller paintings. Even cut to shreds, images can be used for collages; given new life. Striving for perfection is futile. Nothing we ever do is perfect. If it were, that would be the end of it, then we could give up art and start playing chess instead. But I still think Duchamp was a better artist than chess player. But he was not perfect. Not as an artist, and certainly not as a chess player.

No thought or idea is ever really gone, it is within me and, should I need it again, it will come back to me.

Striving for perfection is futile. Nothing we ever do is perfect.

Of course! It is irrelevant whether striving for perfection is futile or not. The choice to strive for it, that is what matters, for me.
I must stress that part again and again, simply because these are highly personal choices. I don't presume to know what others should do, nor what is right or wrong. I only know what is right for me.

ah yes, I might have phrased that wrong - Striving for perfection is futile.
I should have said "Expecting to be perfect" (and subsequently tossing what does not measure up). As long as we are not perfect, we are creative. Once perfect (a unobtainable goal, but just for the sake of argument) we have plateaued. There is then no use creating anything anymore. That is what I alluded to mentioning Duchamp, because that was his conclusion (and I think he was patently wrong).

Yes, I understand.
As for tossing what is not needed, for me, that's essential (in art as well as life)! Removing what you no longer want or need in order to make room for new developments.
I am not an archivist. Other people can archive (those who choose to do so).

It’s lovely but vapid...empty. I get it. Love your subsequent pieces that’s you felt more.

Thank you @steemed-open
So do I :) Having fun with another one at the moment, number 9...

From your words of this being a possible "failure" I can only contribute the idea that when one feels a failure it usually responds to an expectation. So I guess this didn´t meet your expectation but it is in no way a failure. I like looking at the ones I feel this with because they usually point me in a new direction I didnt expect, different to where I was aiming. Anyway... just a thought! ;-)

Thank you for your contribution Romanie. It's an interesting thought, and makes sense.
I suppose, it could be said that the expectation, in this case, or any (when I paint), is the creation of the connection. ( Maybe "connection" is not even the right word, though I am not sure which word would be a more appropriate. )

In that sense, by general standards, or general definition (due to lack of success in establishing the connection, blabla), this would be a failure.
However, that doesn't mean it's a big deal, or anything of that sort.
In the end, it's all just experiences, in art as well as life.

A diferencia del sentimiento expresado a mi me parece un producto hermoso de tu mente.
Sincero abrazo 🤗

¡Gracias @slwzl!

Yes, perhaps you are right, Sabina. But this work deserves attention. I liked.

Thank you @feelisgood. I simply didn't connect with it, not this time anyway. Perhaps the timing simply wasn't right, who knows.

I started a new piece, and I connected with it instantly. So I'll ride that wave for now.

I read your post properly and visit your web site. This is a amazing post and arts are interesting.

I read your post properly and visit your web site.

... and that's why you upvoted your own comment, as a sort of self-pat on the back? :)

Thank you.

Dear Artzonian, thanks for using the #ArtzOne hashtag. Your work is valuable to the @ArtzOne community. Quote of the week: Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics. -Victor Pinchuk

I think most of creative people have been in there. Sometimes the failure feels overwhelming but once we learn to manage these feelings and see the good things in it we can overcome. Thank you so much for sharing your creative process as a whole. Love it when bloggers are this organic with their viewers.

I don't think you were wasting your time.