Be Grateful for What You Have Learned

This is the second page in my fun and experimental book. I dyed the paper with coffee grounds and black Rit Fabric Dye. It is a quote I found when researching table blessings to include, ones which have a wonderful reminder about gratitude and giving thanks. Here is what the quote says:

Gratitude is the fairest blossom
which springs from the soul.

– Henry Ward Beecher 1887

I am often struck as I look at my work long after I have completed it. I have to remind myself that I did that. It took me many years to find my artist voice, and like my audiences, I am struck by what I now create. It is very humbling and encouraging at the same time.

When I look at this piece, I see a great lesson remembered. It includes a HUGE mistake, which I can still see and others might just think is part of the design. Let me explain. I was going to letter the quote in a straight up and down format, so I gently laid down Architect’s tape to create the channel in which the lettering would sit. I then forgot about it. When I returned two weeks later, and attempted to pull off the tape…the page ripped. The white vertical ‘smudges’ you see are where the tape pulled away multiple layers of the paper, along with the dyed pigment. You bet, I said some VERY unladylike words, and took a deep breathe. Now what??????

I then remembered something. I had a student that did the exact same thing during a class. Her tape ripped off a large portion of the dyed page, so I quoted me back to myself. “No one knows that it wasn’t supposed to be that way, so just keep going.” She got up, took a walk, then got right back to it. Her piece turned out beautifully. I told myself the same thing, and altered my course. I wrote the words over the smudges, and it worked. If I hadn’t told you, you wouldn’t ‘see’ my mistake.

It was in this moment that I was more than grateful that I am able to practice what I teach…mistakes are only mistakes if you let them keep you down. Giving thanks, being grateful for the mistakes we make, KNOWING that they are forming us into a better version of ourselves…THAT is the blossom which springs from our soul and nurtures us into our best life. And yet first, we have to acknowledge our mistakes, experience that emotional reaction, then keep moving forward. It sounds easy, and yet years later some of our greatest errors still haunt us. Which isn’t all bad, unless we allow them to stop us in our tracks.

Somewhere in all these stupid, selfish and dumb things we have done, there is a lesson and a better person who emerges. For that to happen, we have to admit what we did, face the truth, and work hard enough to be able to find the lesson in it all. For me that lesson was to practice what I teach…mistakes are only mistakes if you let them keep you down. I hope that this gives you the courage to face your own mistakes and become a better version of yourself as a result of your lessons learned. Only you can choose to change and then be grateful for what you have learned.