FAILING TO SUCEED

What do you do when things go wrong? For me I hate myself and spiral into a “I am useless” mode. I know, I know all about buzz words and phrases such as “we have to fail to appreciate success”. Its still a pain and can be difficult to live with. This is especially true when we think we are in control of our outcomes. We think we can plan and then act out our plans with no issues. Suppose if that was true there would be no pint in insurance. We take out insurance for those situations when things go wrong. But is there anything to be learnt from failing? Of course, there is, however for me I haven’t mastered that characteristic yet!

In my line of business, glass art where I heat glass tubing and rod in a naked flame then when things go wrong there is a likelihood that I will burn or cut myself. That’s not the worse though. For me when glass cracks I feel my heart sinks. I feel sick and helpless. Yet I shouldn’t since I can mostly repair my broken glass. It’s a wakeup call that tells me Ima not as good or clever as I thought I was. I have been working with hot glass for over fifty years yet still the glass cracks and its usually my fault.

Those that don’t appreciate the creative spirit say to me, “Oh well you can always make another”. I hate those reactions. Its as if what I do is not important. Its as if I am just messing around and completely misunderstands the importance of my glass creativity. Its who I am and what I exist for. Its my reason to live and when things go wrong, I take it personally. Its an insult to my skills. I am a nobody. Feeling completely useless and a total waste of time and no point in living. When I mess up then I can see no sense or use in any future work. I feel like giving up and going to bed, never to wake up again. Black clouds galore. Sometimes it takes ages for me to recover. They (whoever “they” are) say these things are sent to try us. That’s a load of rubbish as is every pathetic sentimental comment by people who just want me to feel better. Trouble is its not about feeling better (or worse). It’s about achieving my wishes and translating my ideas into a glass form that I can be proud of.

I am not sure I would know what to do if I wasn’t working with glass and I hope I never find out. Someone told me that I make my glass items too complicated, and I should focus on easier things but then I would see that as a compromise, and I am not into that. I get an idea and just go with it. I don’t plan for things going wrong. Maybe I should but then if I did that, I wouldn’t do anything. Keeping things simple is not my style. Nor is shallow thinking. I like deep thoughts and the deeper the better. So, to analyse my reaction when glass cracks is almost an artform in itself. I could do performance art where I deliberate make things wrong. I have tried that a few times and its quite liberating. Making glass rejects is not a great business strategy but emotional it is educational.

Its easy to talk about any subject in general terms but I feel to get ones point across the story has to be direct and personal so here goes with mine. I had an idea to make a glass thistle in a thistle. It wasn’t just for fun, and it wasn’t just for me. I thought of the idea when learning of the Scottish Glass Society’s exhibition with the theme of Scottish icons. I may be wrong, but I think the thistle is pretty much a Scottish thing. I have made loads of thistles over the years so making a glass one inside another should be straight forward. There are two ways of approaching the subject, both involve a technique called ring seals. This where one piece of glass is heated up and fused to another piece of glass which is covering the smaller glass piece. One can either go outside in or inside out. I decided to make a small thistle then make a larger thistle. I then made a hole in the larger thistle to allow me to insert the small thistle in and fuse the base of the thistle to the outer one. I did so but wasn’t exactly happy with the result as I felt the glass had not fused completely and the more, I heated the more danger was that the smaller thistle which now was inside the larger one would distort. I gave up and put it to one side before I started making another, but this time inserted the thistle into a half made larger thistle. This worked better I thought and sure as anything it lasted. When I picked up the first thistle, I made I notice a crack and on heating up to try and repair the crack grew longer and wider. It was then that I gave in and regarded myself as failed. I failed in co0mpleting my objective, but I am not a failure. It’s a bit like saying there are no good nor bad people around there are just people who sometimes do bad things, or they may choose to do good things. Trouble is I never chose to fail. Anyway, making glass thistles is always a prickly job!!!!!!!!