Pottery: Throw to Fail
"Throw to fail..."
Those words broke the perfectionist in me, in the best way possible. Because growing up in a very strict household with a difficult life, failure is not an option for me. The taste of failure was all I’ve ever known and I never wanted to taste it if I could do something about it. And that was all I spent my life doing, striving to NEVER fail.
When I do fail (which is an inevitable part of living life), it feels like my heart is being choked and the world is collapsing around me. I go through the emotional and physical whirlpool of depressive behavior.
As I grew older, my fear of failure only intensifies as more awareness of all the things that could possibly go wrong is accumulated with experience.
That's the soil these words "throw to fail…" are falling on. Not the most fertile ground.
The idea "throw to fail..." came from one of my pottery teachers. On one of the days I was throwing in the community studio, she saw how badly I was taking my failed attempts.
She enlightened me with the fact that this act of throwing pottery isn't as big a deal as my perfectionist nature is making it out to be. My anxiety was latching on to figments of my imagination. There's nothing to fear in reality because at this stage of the craft (throwing on the wheel) there is no wastage.
If we don't work the clay into a shape we're happy with, we can just re-wedge the clay and try again…
If the walls are too thin, re-wedge and try again…
If the clay cracks in the drying process, toss it in the reclaim clay bucket, add water, re-wedge it and try it again…
Fear does not have a seat at this table, unless you give it one. There’s no purpose for fear here.
She explains how she would come to the pottery wheel with the purpose of throwing until the clay is pushed past its breaking, just to see and learn how far she can push and pull the clay. In failure, she learns the most.
I have heard a lot on this “embrace failure” act to better one’s self but I have never ventured to do it and neither would the perfectionist in me let that thought come to my awareness.
Who throws with the purpose of failing?
Who does anything with the end goal of it just crumbling in your hands?
The thought of me embracing the act of failure as means to improve myself. The two concepts has always been contradictory so to have them both merging as the solution to succeed at pottery…left me speechless.
I was so confused. My internal wiring was going through a whole meltdown. Because, again, failure was not an option for me. Up till now, I was throwing on the wheel to create something to keep. The act of demolishing a piece that I have spent so much time creating is an act of defeat, the ultimate failure!
But to truly succeed in pottery, a craft I was falling deeply in love with, I have to allow failure to be part of the creative process.
My perspective is morphing…
Instead of looking at the act of crushing my work as a sign of defeat, I need to look at it as an act of rebirth. Because as long as the clay isn't fired in the kiln yet, it was be reclaimed multiple times which means multiple learning opportunities with less pointless wastage overall!
Does it still hurt when I crush the clay piece I’ve put so much effort into?
Most definitely!
The perfectionist in me still struggles with that, but it is definitely not as painful as it once was.
The penalizing consequence has been taken away in the activating of the new concept "throw to fail..."
I no longer have to stare as a growing pile of pottery that served only as a looming shadow of painful failures.
I now flow with the "failures" and treat them not as an execution of my merit but as just another step in the learning journey.
