This one’s not for sale. I will wear it as a reminder… to embrace imperfection and go with the flow – swim with the tide. When I made it in Cynthia’s PMC class, I had a vision of a flat whale charm with swirlies on his back, and that is what I had… for a few minutes.

After it came out of the kiln, I broke his tail. I spent a few minutes with Cynthia talking about how to fix it, but Jill had a better idea. “Why not wire it back on so it can wiggle?” hmmmm. Not what I had in mind, but sooo much cooler than the original idea.
A bump in the road turned into an opportunity to make it better.

I am an anti-perfectionist. I grew up seeing first-hand that perfectionism can be a curse, so I went in the opposite direction.

In my classes, I try to take the pressure off of my students by teaching them to enjoy the process, not to focus on the final product. Embrace the journey, have fun, trust, create without a pre-conceived notion of what you want your art to look like. In this instance, I did not take my own advice. It took a few moments for me to give up my ‘whale vision’ but once I did, I was much more satisfied. When I look at it now, I don’t see a broken whale; I see innovation, collaboration and trust.

So… once again art lessons and life lessons are one. Trust the process and the Universe. Go with the flow. Let go of pre-conceived notions. Have fun. Everything will work out in the end.