The Successes and Failures of a Creative Year
I’ve experienced both success and failure intensely this year, and I want to vulnerably share some moments of creative experimentation with you - regardless of their outcome.
One huge success I had this year was being able to teach a weekend workshop at Mendocino Art Center. It was an incredible experience with engaged students who made beautiful pottery. Earlier in the year, I tried to run a similar workshop at a different ceramics center and got no sign-ups. Ouch. I’m so glad I didn’t let that discourage me from pursuing my ambition to travel and lead workshops because it turned out to be a truly fulfilling experience. I am already itching to do it again!
I also have been celebrating the fact that I get to teach wheel throwing at Fire Arts Center in Arcata. One of the hardest parts of relocating was walking away from my role as an instructor in Atascadero, so getting to continue teaching here has been important to me. Not all my local ambitions have been so successful though. I tried to get a monthly figure drawing group off the ground, but after month after month of low turnout, I stopped running ads. Win some, loose some.
Selling my work at at-least one market was my goal for 2025. I am happy to have one small holiday market on the calendar, but other than that, I haven’t sold a thing! I also haven’t even begun to think about getting my home studio set up, which would make producing inventory for markets much easier. Maybe next year!
Getting the homestead established took a lot of my creative energy this year and was a huge learning experience. For every jar of tomatoes I put into storage, there were equal amount of tomatoes lost to blossom end rot (to the chickens delight). I grew a 200 pound pumpkin, but for some reason didn’t get a single winter squash to amount to anything. I have enough potatoes to feed an army, but my cucumbers were bitter and most of them were fed to the goats. It’s all an experiment and all incredibly fun!
So, as summer turns to fall and I begin to slow down, I am amazed by the amount of creative energy that has culminated into pots, plants, meals, and memories. I am so grateful to all the students who have showed up to make my dreams come true and the land I get to tend.
Through the ups and downs, I have learned that the more I create, the greater my capacity to keep creating becomes. I have come to embrace that much will fail and much will succeed. In fact, the more I fail, the less I mind, and the more I succeed, the greater the successes become. I approach each new creative endeavor with curiosity, knowing that no matter which way it goes, it is always worth my best efforts. I will continue to be excited to see what thrives and what withers, and what I can learn from every experience.
