Brilliant Failure?

As an art student, I didn’t take too kindly to critique sessions. I was still awfully thin - skinned, and I’m not sure I could find my self esteem if you’d given me a map with an X on it. So, in a critique of a color theory assignment that had a “recipe” to essentially follow, and on my third attempt I still hadn’t accomplished the desired outcome, I took great offense at my professor’s critique that I had created a, “Brilliant Failure.” I couldn’t hear the, “Brilliant.” What I heard was, “No one has ever failed in such a monumental way.” I did not return to art classes the next semester.

Part of the issue was my hyper-sensitivity, and part of it was I wasn’t working in “my” medium. There was nothing for fiber studies in the art department then except for perhaps a seminar on weaving. Part too, was the fact that I was student who was supposed to make mistakes so I could learn from them. I really don’t like making mistakes.

A few years later I had that prof again in a combo class about art and music. Brainstorming with a group, I was explaining one of my off the wall ideas, when he interrupted the football player who was dismissing my idea, to say hold on she knows what she’s doing. The light bulb shone - Finally I understood “brilliant failure.” He had meant, in that long ago critique, that even though the results of my attempt to follow that color recipe didn’t necessarily work as they should have, the results were still brilliant.

The quilt at the top of this post is another of my brilliant failures. From the pile of fabrics I started out with, I never would have guessed I’d get such a mushy indistinctly patterned quilt. As far as a color recipe goes I should have been spot on- a secondary triad (orange- green- purple) with a couple of analogous accents, a few lights and darks for contrast. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased, and surprised. I also wouldn’t necessarily have thought I could make something that glowed, and actually radiates perceived heat. ( the photo is dark, so you have to trust me on that.)

That is one of the things I enjoy so much about this medium. Surprises at every turn.