Watercolor capitalizes on mistakes.
“Failure [noun]: A critical action in the process of growth and the acquisition of experience. Synonymous: Create personal growth. To learn. To experiment.”
I have a hard time with the “f” word. Talking with a friend this weekend, I realized how many decisions I made in the past that minimized risk. I settled on an art history degree instead of pushing myself in the studio. Certainly, not a poor choice in the grand scheme of things, but a safe choice, nonetheless.
I think that single decision has defined me for years. So here I am, a year into this experiment in my own home studio, no longer uttering “I can’t”, but whispering “I’m willing to try.” And failure will come with the process. Somehow, my forty year old self accepts that fact better than the scared kid I left in college twenty years ago.
“Consider this: Failure is nothing more than a result. It may not be what you hoped for, but it is an unchangeable fact. You can’t fight or hide from facts. Experiencing failure is like downloading information. It’s a new fact to process. You now know something that you didn’t before. Results — favorable and unfavorable — lead to new actions, more informed actions, more calculated risks…”