I have an Inspiration Board in my studio that most often looks just like I imagine the inside of the artsy side of my brain - choatic, colourful and fun.
To tack up all my little snipets of inspiration, I have taken to using discarded pieces of glass which I turn into magnets. These pieces are often the ones which never made it into production becasue they didn't turn out how I expected, or have tiny flaws that just don't pass my quality standards.
It's funny, but for little misteps and mistakes, I find it interesting that they seem to be the pieces everyone gravitates toward when they visit. I've come to realize that they each have little stories of their own to tell. Like the time I learned that trying to get a little more kiln time and speeding up some firing cycles means that you can essentially throw away $50 in glass (patience, patience) or the time I realized that pink flowers on a cobalt background makes lovely peonies look like dread grey, lifelless ghost plants (not the cheerful spring look I was going for).
I have tried selling magents from time to time and it never seems to work out the way I planned, but for now I realize that these little pieces of failled experiments help me connect to people who take an interest in my work. I often send them away with friends and customers, and it's nice to know that they want to share part of my process and love that buying from me means buying from a real person who experiments and sometimes fails.
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