{"id":403497,"date":"2026-08-11T12:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T12:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/403497\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T12:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T12:38:15","slug":"what-if-failure-isnt-the-end-a-fort-worth-art-show-asks-us-to-see-it-differently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/403497\/","title":{"rendered":"What if failure isn\u2019t the end? A Fort Worth art show asks us to see it differently"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, an art exhibition in Fort Worth featured art inspired by failures of all kinds: relationships, careers, bodies and creative processes.<\/p>\n

It may seem an odd thing to highlight. <\/p>\n

But curator Sarah Angle said the idea started about 15 years ago, when she and fellow curator Jocelyn Foster were making New Year’s resolutions over dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time I was trying to build a journalism career and building that career requires pitching, requires interviewing,” said Angle. <\/p>\n

“Inevitably, it ends up causing a lot of failure and getting a lot of rejection letters.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Angle made a resolution to fail more.<\/p>\n

Not because failure felt good.<\/p>\n

But because putting yourself out there, trying something new, asking for opportunities and risking rejection, means accepting that things won’t always work.<\/p>\n

That idea eventually became The He(Art) of Failure.\u00a0The exhibition asked visitors to sit with failure rather than immediately trying to fix it.<\/p>\n

\"Erin<\/p>\n

Sarah Angle<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

The He(Art) of Failure<\/p>\n

Erin Ratigan’s Object Impermanence juxtaposes idealism and self-expression with the brutality of real-world disappointments.<\/p>\n

Failure inspires<\/p>\n

One of the artists in the show, Erin Rattigan, was making a ceramic sculpture of a woman’s body. But the sculpture kept exploding in the kiln.
What survived was a tiny ceramic nipple.<\/p>\n

Rattigan began thinking about it; a part of the body associated with creation and nourishment. And suddenly, what she’d considered a failed sculpture became something else. <\/p>\n

She created an installation featuring photography and relics from the exploded sculpture.<\/p>\n

“It sort of became art in itself through failure,” she said. <\/p>\n

That shift from disappointment to possibility fascinates her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think failure ultimately doesn’t exist. I think that failure only exists if you are trying to achieve one specific outcome and you are measuring success as only achieving that outcome. <\/p>\n

“Ultimately it’s just a learning experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sarah Angle<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

The He(Art) of Failure<\/p>\n

Menchaca’s Fragment 1. Born with a genetic condition, he was visually impaired most of his life and developed a style and process around his abilities. The purpose of his pieces was an investigation of sight, subjectivity, and what it costs to see things clearly.<\/p>\n

A way of seeing<\/p>\n

For artist Noble Menchaca, failure became a way of seeing.<\/p>\n

Menchaca has a genetic disorder that caused his eyesight to deteriorate. He had to hold his artwork close to his face to see it.<\/p>\n

Eventually, he underwent reconstructive eye surgery.<\/p>\n

But Menchaca made an unexpected choice. He only had one eye operated on. He was afraid that getting his sight back would mean losing the way he’d learned to see a wholesome world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to wonder if I actually wanted to have my eyesight fixed; if I actually came to value its brokenness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One of his works is a self-portrait after the surgery.<\/p>\n

One eye is repaired. The other still has impaired vision. An exploration of whether something can be both flawed and valuable.<\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/p>\n

Sarah Angle<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

The He(Art) of Failure<\/p>\n

Christopher Blay’s “Ten Attempts at Failure” is a single-channel video and installation in which the artist attempts to type a rejection letter from his Hopper Prize application of 2024, from memory. <\/p>\n

\u201cFailure can mean a new way of seeing things,” he said. “It can mean a new opportunity to value what you’ve already been given. Failure can mean a chance to see things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that’s about more than his eyesight. <\/p>\n

Menchaca once planned to become a web developer. It didn’t work out. Instead, he took a risk and started a coffee shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m so much more happy and proud of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Failing into good ideas<\/p>\n

The curators said they’re seeing a particularly intense fear of failure among young people.<\/p>\n

Angle teaches at TCU. She said students can be so afraid of getting an idea wrong that they become paralyzed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not going to fail you for giving a bad idea. You’re not going to get a C or D in this class for trying something different,” she said. “I would reward that failure. I want you to try.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Curator's<\/p>\n

Sarah Angle<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

The He(Art) of Failure<\/p>\n

Curator’s Jocelyn Foster and Sarah Angle created the idea of The He(Art) of Failure about 15 years ago when they were making New Year’s resolutions over dinner.<\/p>\n

Because, she said, the bad ideas are often part of getting to the good ones.<\/p>\n

And curator Foster said that pressure isn’t limited to students.<\/p>\n

Play in the mess<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we release that demand and that internal pressure and just have fun and play?” Foster said. <\/p>\n

“Life is just one big playful practice. I mean, it doesn’t have to be perfect. We get to mess up. We get to be messy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The curators understand messiness. Angle included work in the show about the gradual failure of a marriage. Foster’s work was about her career failures and disappointments. Both said that putting those experiences into the world can feel vulnerable.<\/p>\n

But Foster believes there’s something powerful about saying thedifficult thing out loud.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you bring something to light, when you have the conversation, when you’re vulnerable, shame dies,\u201d Foster said. <\/p>\n

That’s perhaps a deeper meditation on failure.<\/p>\n

Not that failure is secretly success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not that every painful experience has a happy ending.<\/p>\n

\"Jocelyn<\/p>\n

Sarah Angle<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

The He(Art) of Failure<\/p>\n

Jocelyn Foster’s Light Beings. Foster portrays failure through stories of the changing world shared as creative nonfiction, poetry, fiction and essays to float off the page through the visual arts and multi-sensory exhibitions. She believes this life is one big playful experiment and that people get to fail, to mess up and allow others to do the same.<\/p>\n

But that failure doesn’t necessarily have to be the end of the story. <\/p>\n

Angle said she’s come to think of those experiences as iterations.<\/p>\n

A next version.<\/p>\n

And Foster takes that idea one step further.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs failure even a thing? … Is it just redirection?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe that’s what it means to trust failure.<\/p>\n

To let yourself not know where the path is going.<\/p>\n

To accept that the thing that broke, ended, rejected you or didn’t turn out the way you imagined might still change the way you see what’s possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last weekend, an art exhibition in Fort Worth featured art inspired by failures of all kinds: relationships, careers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-403497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}