Even though the summer / fall issue of studio potter got mailed out in late July, I still want to jump up and down and wave the flag and say read it.
My essay is called instructions for failure."Success is nothing to sneeze at but failure, too, offers great possibilities.... We have all sorts of negative notions about failure and so the hidden message is don't risk anything. Don't take chances. Be a good boy. Stay within the limits.... But of course in the arts and virtually anything else that leads a satisfactory life, failure is implicit. You try things, you fall on your face, you figure out what went wrong, you go back and try them."
-- Jules Feiffer (as interviewed by Jesse Rhodes; Smithsonian, September 2010))
After what Warren did for me (locating the magazines and photocopying the articles) and NOW (!) your article on Studio Potter, I must begin my subscription. First, perhaps a back issue of the one where your article appeared.
Failure? I have had my share. Learning from it? I try my best.
I have in my hands a copy of the current issue of Studio Potter. I read with intrigue your instances of failing and the subsequent effort to make them right. It is your finishing words that warmed my soul. "...Using failure as an instruction list only works if you go on; it is part of an endless, evolving process of fascination, a normal endeavor in a satisfactory life."