Can you fail within art?
So after a very hectic last semester of university, working hard, staying up late, typing, thinking, experimenting, I’ve got 1 grade back from the modules completed. And. Well, I’m happy with it, yes sure, on paper, it is an ok grade. But as a person that is very hard on themselves, I expected myself to do better, to be more. Something about seeing a number on a screen that doesn’t match the expectation I had put all these thoughts in my head that I hadn’t delved deep enough into until 5 minutes before writing this blog.
This last semester as university has been shambles. So many things within the years that we’ve been there have gone to shite. You’d think that 3rd year would be better because it’s the first and only year within my time at university that there hasn’t been covid, well you’d be wrong. It has been chaos, constantly, but maybe i’m thinking wrong and that is just 3rd year in general aha. Either way, I did the work that I had to do only for someone to come in and put there opinion of my work down on a piece of paper. Of which when reading my feedback seems like this person isn’t even talking about my work! Weird :3
But I’ve come off my phone and stepped outside into what should be a lovely day to be drowned in thoughts of the fact that I feel I haven’t done as well as I set myself up to do. The drive and hunger within me has been starved of the 2 digit number that it wanted to see. I think to myself, I’m not what I thought I was, I’m going to disappoint, I feel like a failure.
I think about that word. Failure.
What is failure?? As I feel it’s different within everyone. I wanted to get a certain mark on my work in order to feel proud and like I accomplished university almost, and because I was 2,3 marks off what I wanted, the complete opposite of myself comes to mind? Self crisitim, harsh thoughts and failure!?!?!?!?!?
There has been a lot of times in my life where I have failed yes- I know for sure by past experiences it’s not something I like to do; I really dont think its anything anyone likes to do! But I’m aware of what it is and the feelings that I get from it- but it almost seems different now. Why does it feel like my whole world, my love my passion is driving further away from me on this fluctuating road that is my life. I feel, well I’m not sure what I feel, all I know is that it doesn’t feel good. I was happy with what I did, I had a lot of photos to decide between and a lot of reflection and help from peers and lecturers and it only got me so far. I wonder how other people have felt when they haven’t got themselves to a place they wanted to be. For some reason I keep thinking about Van Gogh. Maybe it’s because I watched the Doctor Who episode with him in not so long ago. maybe it’s not. But he faced criticism all his life, he faced ‘failure’ with his art and look what it lead him to do :3 Little did he know that he was a blady born genius!! Now I am definitely not putting myself on par with Van Gogh, but I am thinking a lot about his ‘failure’ never stopped him from creating. I feel like this blog is a bit of a waffle, I mean when is it never, but more so it was a place for my to write out, think and reflect about the number I saw on my screen before writing this; almost like a diary entry.
A lot of art students will be getting their grades back and there will be a mixture of feelings coming out from it. There’s nothing that I can say that’s going to all of a sudden make you go “oh you know what, Darcys right, don’t feel sad about it blah blah blah” because some words that you read on a screen more than likely won’t change how you really feel. Instead, I offer you the advice of writing it out. I was so in my head before writing this down and weirdly enough with doing so I do feel a little better. Whenever I see online the advice, oh write down your feelings, write down this, write down that, urgh. I tried it before, wasn’t my thing, but ngl, I think I was doing it all wrong. The words that are coming straight to my head are down on this page, no thought, just, well what I guess, is raw feelings and emotions within my thoughts coming through. And after writing it out, go out and create. Do better than what you’ve done, and if you feel like that last piece of work is your best work that you’re going to do, then challenge yourself more. I doubt anyone’s work that they done at 21 is the best work they’ve ever done. You want to improve, you want to work hard.
So do it.
At the end of the day, it’s just a number. It doesn’t rule your life.