She sat down at the wheel with a lopsided ball of clay, and most of the tools she would need. Her hands might have been shaking, but it was hard to tell, as I did not want to make her nervous by watching too closely. Her daughter sat right beside her, studying her mother and the wheel intently.
She told me she had not thrown since high school. Back then, she loved everything about pottery. She had thought about going to art school, maybe in Savannah, but that was not in the cards.
It takes a lot of strength and courage to fail in front of the people who expect you to get things right.
I heard a thunk from across the room, where I was glazing. The clay and bat had flown off the wheel – too much pressure while centering. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her face getting red with frustration. She repinned the bat, wet her hands, and tried again.
Maybe an hour later, I checked in. “How’s it going?”
“Frustrating,” she said. “It’s coming back, but I feel like I’m wasting your time…”
“Anything but that,” I said. “Keep going. It’s muscle memory. It comes back.”
Her teenage daughter never left her side.
An hour after that, she had made a lovely bowl, and then another. Then walls collapsed, but she tried again. Then she was coaching her daughter, the two of them throwing together. I’m not sure she saw that I was watching, and I don’t think anyone saw that I was holding back tears.
This is an incredibly busy time of year, and the pressure is on for everything to be perfect. It feels like there is not enough time to fail and persist through something – deadlines and schedules and the pressure we put ourselves under can feel so ominous.
When we give ourselves permission to fall down, fail, and learn – especially in the midst of stress and pressure – the most beautiful thing happens: we extend that same permission to others. This potter was willing to fumble through a process she didn’t quite remember in front of our studio, and in front of her daughter. She knew she wasn’t going to get it right the first time, or even the tenth, and this was okay. She gave all of us permission to be human.
It takes a lot of strength and courage to fail in front of the people who expect you to get things right. Parents, teachers, I’m looking at us. We are constantly expected to be role models, authority figures, and sources of unconditional love. Sometimes failure just does not seem to be an option.
But maybe when we expose ourselves as human – by making mistakes, acknowledging failure, or flopping real or metaphorical pots – we extend permission to do the same to the young people who are learning from us. We relieve just a little bit of pressure. When we are resilient ourselves, we teach resilience and persistence. When we can laugh and learn from our own mistakes, we teach others to do the same.
Watching her struggle, fail, and persist was a gift to me – and an even bigger gift to her daughter. It mattered so much more than the bowls, but I suppose this can be said for this entire project, and for clay itself.
