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THE GIFT OF FAILURE Sometimes the best thing that can happen to us creatively is to have something go completely wrong. No matter how much experience we have, there is always something that can put us right back at the beginning—where we don’t quite know what we’re doing, where things don’t go as planned, and where we have to be willing to try something different. Recently, I was reminded of this while working with a fused glass class. A new product I used didn’t work the way I expected, and everyone’s project was ruined. Not just a little off, but a full, unmistakable failure—the kind where you look at the result and think, “Well… THAT was not the plan.” I was baffled, humbled, and honestly pretty embarrassed to admit this failure to the class. But after the initial disappointment, I found myself wondering: What happened? What had I missed? What do I need to do differently? That is the part of failure I think we don’t appreciate enough: failure is a wonderful teacher. It sparks our curiosity, sends us down paths we hadn’t considered, and sometimes brings us to a success we never expected. We tend to think of creativity as a straight line from idea to finished piece. We want the idea in our head to translate neatly into reality. We want the technique to behave and the process to go smoothly. But making things rarely works that way. We try something. We discover what doesn’t work. We adjust. We try again. In that sense, failure isn’t an interruption of the creative process—it is the process. We see this in many stories about invention and discovery. Thomas Edison is often associated with the idea that he didn’t fail thousands of times while developing the lightbulb; he found thousands of ways that didn’t work. The exact quotation and numbers are difficult to pin down historically, but the underlying idea is sound. Edison and his team experimented relentlessly, making adjustments and learning from each result. Then there’s the Post-it Note. In 1968, 3M scientist Spencer Silver was trying to develop a very strong adhesive. Instead, he created something that seemed, by his original objective, to be a failure: an adhesive that was weak, removable, and reusable. It didn’t do what he intended. But he didn’t throw the idea away. Years later, another 3M employee, Art Fry, remembered the unusual adhesive while looking for a way to mark the pages of his hymnal without damaging them. The “failed” adhesive turned out to be exactly what he needed. What I love about that story is that the important part wasn’t simply that Silver failed. It was that he noticed something unexpected and stayed curious enough to see where it might lead. Every artist, maker, writer, musician, gardener, cook, or anyone who creates knows this process. You have an idea. You make an attempt. You discover what isn’t working. You adjust. You try something else. Sometimes you get closer. Sometimes you don’t. And sometimes you stumble into something you never would have discovered if the first attempt had worked perfectly. That is creativity. I think this becomes especially important as we get older. become very good at the things we already know how to do. We develop routines, become efficient, and learn what we like and what we’re good at. We get comfortable—maybe too comfortable. If we only do what we already know how to do, we stop experiencing what it feels like to discover something new. Being a beginner can be uncomfortable. It can make us feel clumsy and remind us that we don’t know everything. But it can also make us feel curious and alive. There is something wonderful about beginning a new project. Suddenly, there is something to discover. Something to figure out. We can try something unfamiliar. We can make a mess. We can make something terrible. We can start over. We may make something wonderful. But even when we don’t, we haven’t failed. We’ve learned something. We’ve explored something. We’ve moved a project forward. That is what I’m taking away from my own little studio failure. I wish the class had gone differently. I wish I had tested that new product before using it with everyone. And I certainly don’t want to repeat that particular mistake. But I’m also grateful for what the experience reminded me of. I am still learning, too. There will always be something I haven’t tried, something I don’t understand yet, something that doesn’t work the way I expected. And that’s okay. Creativity isn’t about avoiding failure. It’s about being willing to take a risk, try something different, see where it leads, and become a beginner again and again and again. That is the gift of failure.
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