This is a Before and After photo of my donkey. Usually the after photos are suppose to look better but not in this case. We fired donkey in the new kiln and it was 200 degrees off so he was just a puddle in the bottom of the kiln.
As my husband says, “This is why they say pottery is an art, not a scientific method” So I’ll make him again and fir him in the old kiln. I really don’t like recreating pieces but in this case there is no way around it.
I am making the donkey for a friend’s birthday present. I didn’t want to do a realistic one because have you ever noticed that donkeys never look all that happy about being donkeys?
This ‘Epic Fail Donkey’ only took me a couple of hours to do. It took me about 2 weeks to get it in my head and decide how I was going to do it. In honesty it took me two weeks to make myself try to do it and face the fact that I might fail and not sculpt the donkey I had in my head.
When I’m sculpting it does seem that there always comes a point where I think, “This is it, the one I can’t do. I’m going to have to through this back into the clay pot and start again or admit defeat. ” Then I keep working and it starts taking form and it just starts becoming what I imagined it to be.
I have heard that ‘failure is the beginning of learning.’ I had to think about that when I was told that for a minute because it totally made no sense to me.
I know now what it means. When you fail you have to regroup or quit. Those that regroup learn at least one way that won’t work and have to find out another way to succeed. If you hadn’t failed then you would have never found the technique that got you to success.
But knowing that doesn’t make failing any less discouraging.
about gracehodgin
Grandma Blogger encouraging grand parents to remain active in the lives of their grand children and to inspire imagination and creativity.
When Grace is not writing articles for her blog then she morphs into GracieLoo and is off to ZombieZoo where she is the resident Grandma who hands out cookies, kisses, band-aids for booboos and reads stories to her beloved ZombieZoo Residents.
Grace, Your statement: “Then I keep working and it starts taking form and it just starts becoming what I imagined it to be.” Is really profound. That’s what makes the difference in our success or failure…we just gotta ‘keep on swimminging…’ as Dora would say! Excellent post.
Your poor little donkey. He looked so happy, I guess that’s what happens to all of us when we allow ourselves to burnout…lol
LOL very good point Becky and let’s hope we don’t burn out.
Don’t trust anyone who hasn’t failed at least once!
Well I am very trust worthy then. LOL
Oh, poor little donkey! My first thought was how very cool it is that you were able to snap a picture of it before its demise. It certainly gave me a chance to admire your lovely art.
Wise, wise words, as I’ve come to expect from you. Failing certainly is so discouraging, but so much to be gained. It certainly makes those successes that much sweeter, too!
Very true Barb and sometimes the failures seem necessary when we get to the ultimate goal.
I love this post! I’m going to share it with my son! He gets very discouraged when he fails, but I always tell him just this, -everyone fails- it’s how we learn!
Great post Grace!