Redeux
Or, “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
This is going to be my first semi-project-oriented post, partly because I’m usually too in-the-zone to stop and take pictures of my work, and this time I actually have some photos of the progression. Any idiot should have had the insight to take pictures of their work as it progressed, but not me. This brings me to my second point; this post is important because it acknowledges early failures, realization of my errors in thinking, and adaptation to remedy the problem.
I’ve only realized through my work in science and small business how important failure is. (If you need to know about the immensity of failure in research, just hang around Georgia Tech and ask the most exhausted PhD student you can find.) In small business, it seems to be equally prevalent. Of course, failure is the biggest threat facing most of us, no matter our field. We work at all costs to avoid it, but few people welcome it or approach it with an open heart. I’m no different, certainly. But since hearing many inspiring sentiments on my favorite mindfulness podcasts,
I’m working on letting go of my perfectionist standards and accepting that I, too, make important mistakes.
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Recently I've learned that there’s a true difference in thinking when you assume all errors are negative, rather than seeing opportunities to change the way you do things. It’s all too easy to assign doom and gloom finality to failures of any size, but that’s rarely the reality in any given situation. It’s pretty rare that one misstep equates a complete lifetime wasted, yet its second nature to inherently fear and feel this way. If you stop and think back on your lifetime, along with those of everyone you know, you’ll quickly realize that there probably are zero examples of a single failure leading to full and lasting destruction. Even the largest squandered opportunities in life generally function to eventually open the door to yet another possibility; the problem is that we don’t give ourselves room to absorb this phenomenon. We’re (I’m) so far up our (my) own butts (singular) after a single misguided decision that we (I) have difficulty seeing the big picture, searching for the positive meaning of it all, and acknowledging the ways we (I) benefit from doing things differently in the long run. Instead, I beat myself up endlessly, keeping myself up all night to cycle through my errors, as punishment for the mistake that I’ve made. Soon after, I abandon whatever venture was in question, as I’ve effectively proven to myself that I’m just not good enough.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far in this small business attempt, it’s that you can’t.
If every business startup was dissolved as soon as one failure rolled along, capitalism would not be roaring into the 21st century. Small business owners are plagued with failures. It’s an unfortunate side effect of trying to manage 18 different jobs all at once, when you only threw your hat into the ring with one or two specialties; it is inevitable that you’re going to learn a lot of lessons through mistakes under these circumstances. Not only is it impossible to know exactly how to run every single aspect of a business and to manage all of these tasks in a given day without error, but you also have to consider the precarious nature of a new business venture. As a lifelong dream turns into a lifetime of action, there are bound to be harsh realities to accept. Perhaps the business plan was flawed from the start, maybe the product design overlooked one major issue, or the local market demands a different product than originally intended to produce. Often times, there’s no way of knowing until you’re already knee deep in a misguided cesspool of only the best intentions.
This brings me to my more direct tale of artistic progression so far. I’ll admit, ready and waiting for many scoffs, that when I decided I was going to be painting furniture as a business, my thoughts stopped there. I didn’t have a direction, a specialized set of skills, or a niche to set me apart. I literally decided I enjoyed rehabbing furniture with bold colors and designs in chalk paint, and like every soccer mom with a free weekend, I suddenly figured I was a furniture master. I saw the way that chalk painted furniture had been catapulted into the mainstream, becoming nauseatingly available in every big box store, interior design outlet, and trendy boutique for ridiculously high prices… and frankly, the quality of the work was so poor and lacking in inspiration that I figured I had something to offer. I wanted to put out higher quality pieces with palettes and finishes that appealed to me, rather than the same off-white and lightly distressed accent table that was in every décor department around the country. I intended to put hard work into my wares, but to keep my inventory rolling with a low price, quick turnaround approach. I figured Craigslist was a fine venue to peddle my finished products. I thought it would be a fun and easy little side business.
So. Now we’re all up to date on big mistakes.
The thing is, there is too much chalk painted furniture in existence already, and it can be crazy cheap. America decided about 5 years back that every piece of furniture, no matter the quality, was trendy under the pretense of looking pretty shitty. Secondly, my brand vision was minimal, if that. Anyone can slap a layer of thick acrylic paint on an old nightstand and call it a day. Thirdly, no one thinks to turn to Craigslist for brand new and boutique-priced pieces of furniture. The vast majority of users are only on the site to find cheap deals for themselves. In short, I leapt into a market that was already oversaturated and tried to compete with house moms and big box stores only through means of terribly planned online commerce.
You live and you learn.
The fact is, I never intended to become a vinyl printing fanatic, and certainly never dreamed that I would work with the medium enough to confidently organize intricate multi-sheet designs on investment pieces of furniture. All I originally wanted was a way to create freely and use the bustling Atlanta furniture marketplace to make enough money to get by without working for a corrupt administration again. However, after a few months of toying around with a new tool - my vinyl printer - things have drastically changed. I’ve grown from lauding basic block designs, which took me hours to program and print, to creating delicate and highly detailed multi-panel vinyl prints in the blink of an eye. The learning curve on this machine is known to be quite steep, and my understanding of the instrument skyrocketed with a few months of trial and error. Once I had improved my skills and knowledge of the medium, things really took off. I began playing around with new ideas, and dreamt up an innovative way to utilize the tool in tandem with my beloved chalk paint palettes. With the establishment of my all-original technique, coupling vinyl printing with hand painting, my intentions, aesthetic, and company goals have completely shifted.
Through this new medium, my abilities have grown enormously. My work is coming out completely different than originally planned, and I’m actually proud for the original designs and dramatic products I’m suddenly creating in ever-decreasing periods of time – a feeling I rarely allow myself in regards to my own accomplishments. I’m beyond stoked for the products I continually dream of creating, and only want to opportunity to continue exploring this artistic re-awakening of the past 8 months.
However, I find myself coupling this enthusiasm with a certain degree of shame and self-hatred when I look back at my original intentions. There are a few pieces that I still have in my possession which are honestly difficult to confront each day. When I see them, I’m reminded of the panic and anxiety I felt when they were created. My work wasn’t centered on artistic expression or working on processing my muddled mental history at that point. My daily activities were not mindful or therapeutic. My furniture was not always inspired or personal. Rather, I was so stressed out by the amount of debt accrued during the move from Illinois that I just wanted to scoop up a few pieces, slap on a single layer of paint, and hope for a quick turnaround from some basic bitch who was bored with shopping at Target that day. I was pushing quantity over quality, and created pieces that I didn’t believe in as a desperate measure to meet my minimal credit card payment for a few months. It wasn’t the right intention to found my business upon. And it didn’t pay off like I had hoped.
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Here we have the Winter Forest Redeux. You may recognize this piece from a prior posting, in which a mint green nightstand was all I had to offer. Sure, the piece had cool engraved details and bold hardware to set it apart from other accent tables, but my artistic involvement was minimal. At the time I was excited about the use of clear acrylic to seal in design details, and had used a winter scene to add some interest to the inner door panels. I put the huge handles back on, distressed the paint lightly, and called it a day. This was a throw-away piece that I hoped to earn a few bucks on, and never to see it again.
Six months later, it was still here. I was seeing the piece every time I walked into the upstairs hallway, where it served a purpose for us. I didn’t hate the piece for the way that it looked, which I still think is pretty neat, but I hated what it represented for my work. Failure.
I knew I wanted to revisit the piece, to give it some real thought, and to develop a design for it that fit within the Timestamp brand that I’m so diligently attempting to curate. I just needed to give myself permission to take the time out of my insanely busy days, to sit down with the table, and to let my thinking make a few new connections. This alone took several months; the task was written on to-do lists for many strenuous weeks before I was able to confront my discomfort and follow through. When I finally did, the ideas cascaded from one inspiration to the next, as usual, and my full design was decided within a few days. I would retrofit skeletal bird designs that I had been working on into the interior panels. The tabletop could be finished with a wink and a nod, in the form of elegant empty Victorian birdcages and gently falling feathers. The idea felt complete, on brand, and within reach. It was simple to see; when I forgave myself for my rookie mistake, everything changed. When I gave myself the room to consider the piece from a place of calm and good intentions, the final creation came together without conflict. It was the months of self-cruelty and internal conflict that took so long, not my creative process or personal drive.
Forgiving my failure and learning from the results was the only way to resolve this internal conflict and to remedy the mismatching aesthetic in my collection. Looking back, my brain simply wasn’t in the right state to approach things any differently at the time when I created the first version of this piece. I lived in complete chaos with myself as I tried to adjust to a new state and city without any social support, and the void where a well-salaried position used to sit. I beat myself up for these mistakes for many months, but in recent times I’ve reached the point where I’m able to forgive myself for these failures. I recognize that I wasn’t in control of my anxiety or depression, and I was simply reacting every day rather than taking a step back and consciously processing the situation or developing a thoughtful plan.
Though the piece is now aligned with the bulk of my other work, I still carry the weight of accepting that it could have been even bigger and better if I had collected myself and taken my time developing an innovated design in the first place. All I can do is rest assured that I've found valuable time in my schedule to now rectify a part of my work which was leaving me dissatisfied. I can only choose to mindfully embrace the lessons learned and continue looking forward for my next pieces of work.
There are things I wish I had done differently from the first days of Timestamp, but I have to remind myself that this little business, though addicting and all-encompassing, is only in it's early stages of infancy. I have many things to learn, professionally and personally, and the only way I can move forward positively in both realms is to continue the mental work I’m doing. I will only be able to grow from accepting my flaws, and treating myself kindly in that light as I fine-tune my business operations, internally and externally.
- Jess, Chief Failure, Timestamp Renegade
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