mistakes and moving on

Montalut Doodles 2013 (23)

I made granola for the first time today.  It didn’t work out.

I kept thinking it’s okay.  Mistakes before mastery, that’s how I do it in the studio.  When I used to experiment with new materials, rule of thumb was always, “No hesitation; bring on the mistakes.”

The raw material in this case was food, and I felt bad for wasting good food that’s not even readily available (buckwheat groats!).  I reviewed what went wrong (toaster settings weren’t checked),and tried to salvage what I could (semi-okay toasted granola, anyone?), but what ultimately made me feel better was clearing the space, tossing the evidence of failure and scrubbing burnt parts off the baking sheet.

Why is it such a relief to clear the evidence of a mistake?  Is there comfort in forgetting it happened?  Is that what moving on is about?

 

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