Valentines: Intentions versus Execution

For week six of our year long calligraphy challenge the prompt was to create a Valentine for someone we love. I was very ill and had very little energy, so I dug into my paper boxes to pull this one together. The yellow heart was created using a postcard I made in Kyoto, Japan last Fall using traditional Japanese printing techniques. The colorful, larger heart was cut from a vintage 1950s Christmas card I was given by a woman who cleaned out her old cards from her attic. I used a Sharpie bush marker to create the center words, I call my husband Woozle.

I felt bad that I didn’t have more energy to invest in making my husband a ‘better’ card. He had been out of town and I wanted to create something spectacular for the prompt and Valentine’s Day. When he saw it he absolutely loved it and told me it was one of the best cards I had ever made.

Funny how we judge our work by the thoughts in our head, the ideas and intentions we have when we get started. We know in our own mind what we wanted to do, and we are often disappointed when what we do does not exactly match the idea with which we started. Once the work is done others judge us by what we were actually able to deliver. They have no idea of what we wanted to present, they only know what was completed. We grade our work by our intentions while others grade us by what we deliver. Those two measuring sticks do not always match; we are usually much more harsh on ourselves.

When I posted this card I was disappointed in my outcome and how long it had taken me to get it done purely due to the flu. The group responded very enthusiastically and had great things to say about how I used the different papers. Yes, I was judging my work by my intentions not by what I delivered.

Giving ourselves the ability to live with the difference between what we have in our head and are then able to actually create makes our world less judgmental. Some of the best things in life turn out very differently than how the idea started and isn’t that a wonderful revelation and release.