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.\u00a0<\/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.\u00a0<\/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\u00a0The He(Art) of Failure.\u00a0The exhibition asked visitors to sit with failure rather than immediately trying to fix it.<\/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.\u00a0<\/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.\u00a0<\/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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Ultimately it’s just a learning experience.\u201d<\/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
\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.\u00a0<\/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
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.\u00a0<\/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\u00a0about her career\u00a0failures 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.\u00a0<\/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
But that failure doesn’t necessarily have to be the end of the story.\u00a0<\/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
Zara Amaechi is an arts reporter with KERA News.<\/p>\n
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