Celebrating Mistakes

There are multiple mediums of artistic expression: oil on canvas, word on paper, film on screen, status update on Facebook.

Regardless of the medium, at times our initial vision may get distorted by a glitch (or two) during the creative process. The clay is too dry. The paint is low quality. Writer block. Fear. In the case of a Facebook update intending to be clever, the distortion emerges because of not proofreading.

The Pumpkin Roll Problem

A simple example, and yet it proved a point to me:

Our blunders often create something unexpected.

Isn’t that what we want as creatives? We love the unexpected. Something new. Something fresh. Something surprising and refreshing. Sometimes we must allow ourselves the grace to make mistakes during the process. If we don’t, we will never create. We will never share. Others will never enjoy our work.

Conversely, when we do give ourselves grace in the process, we enjoy the immense satisfaction of creating and sharing our work. It’s very refreshing. Very rewarding.

Isn’t it time to dive in? Time to make some mistakes? Time to blunder?

Who knows, the end result may be more interesting, beautiful, and unique with the mistakes than without them.

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