As an artist I constantly deal with judging my work and seeing its flaws. I have in my mind what I want to create. That design never seems to make it to fruition, despite my hands working with the glass to create the image in my mind.

I have piles of glass beads that I’ve created and then deemed unworthy-flawed and set them aside. Recently, a friend was exploring these rejected beads and commented, “These are beautiful!” It was amazing to me to see what she was admiring in my rejected beads. I saw flawed glass work, and she saw beauty.

I collect angels – all kinds of angels in the art of carved wood, ceramics, glass, weaving, etc. They are all beautiful and special to me. Many of my angels that were created by artisans have the artist’s signature on them. This past week, I was dusting my angels – they needed dusting badly! I noticed one of my ceramic angels had a flawed finger – a spike of clay that probably should have been removed. Then I noticed the artist had signed this beautiful piece of art. The artist didn’t see the flaw, just the beauty of the artful creation made. And I still loved that angel just as much!

Lately, I’ve been working on little “artistic” mushrooms for our Spring gardens. (See photo) As I experimented with the glass and glass powders to create colorful and unique designs, I couldn’t quite achieve what I wanted. Are they flawed? No – I’ve told myself. These are just unique creative endeavors. No more thoughts of flaws in my studio!