When we try, we cannot fail. 

I believe that the act of putting all of oneself into an endeavour is the achievement, not necessarily the outcome, and that is the success of any venture. This is something that I had to continually remind myself of in the months leading up to my recent exhibition – Resonance, at Oxmarket Contemporary in Chichester. 

I had not previously lead and curated an exhibition or exhibited so much of my own work and I was scared. Scared of failing. Scared of not producing work that was good enough. Scared of letting people who believed in me down. Scared of humiliating myself. Scared to put myself and my work out there in the world, away from the safe confines of my studio. I was my harshest critic and constantly berating myself, whilst also asking more of myself. 

But… I did it anyway, as I have realised over the years that nothing changes if we don’t change things ourselves. Even the smallest step can lead to significant shifts in our direction, opening up worlds of possibility and potential.  As creatives, we do not choose an easy path to tread, but if we want to keep doing it, we have no option than to keep moving forwards. 

Our weakness is not recognising our achievements along the way. How each step taken, challenge met, question asked or reflection made, every creative experiment undertaken or piece of art worked on, has taken courage, skill, motivation, discipline and often dogged determination. 

In creating our work, we are exposing a big piece of ourselves, for we are unavoidably a part of the art that we craft. So in order to do this, we have to start being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Many years ago my father gave me a piece of advice I have always tried to adhere to;

“Say yes, then work out how you are going to do it.”

So I did just say ‘Yes’… 

Yes to the opportunity, yes to fear, yes to action, yes to self doubt, yes to creative growth, yes to new experiences, yes to collaboration. I then drew on all my resources to help me achieve this and invited a small group of extremely talented makers to join me. The beautiful ceramics by Frances Marr, stunning metalwork by Samantha English, exquisite and highly skilled wood engravings by Anne Hayward and the tender sculptures of Richard Hayward. 

Now it is over, I can finally say that I am proud of what I achieved. We grow from the challenges we set ourselves. 

However, there is no time to stop. I must keep moving forwards and not loose momentum. I need to make sure it counts, gather all I have learnt and felt and use it to open the next chapter in my creative travels.