Don't Get Mad, Get Better

You have an idea in your head, you have sketched it, plotted out a plan but when you are halfway through you see the wrong of your ways. Now you are stuck. You don't want to start over, because you have invested too much time. What do you do? Well, that would all depend on the crux of the problem.

First of all, you need to be honest with yourself. This is the only way to determine the problem. Is the problem the material you are using? Perhaps there is a design flaw, sometimes ideas are great in our head, but in reality they royally suck. Or it could be your skills. What if your skills have not caught up to your ideas? This is real.

It could be that you need to just take a break and allow the piece to have a moment. Sort of like sending the 3 year old to time out. Let it chill for a moment, an hour or even a few days. This happens to me all the time. And interestingly enough, when I return to it, it magically all works.

Ideas vs execution. Yeah, this is where honesty comes in. You know not all ideas are great once it becomes form and it just needs to be put in the scrap pile. I have about a 30% failure rate. Once I have accepted this inevitable reality of my work I was able to be at peace with my process. Because it is just that, a process. If you understand your process and allow it have its own life it all becomes so much easier and enjoyable.

We all have delusions of grandeur. All of us. Somewhere, somehow we get these great, sometimes crazy ideas of building something. It came to you in a dream, for me mostly in the shower, and it won’t go away until it is executed. But it keeps failing, over and over again. Sometimes we need to just accept that our skills have not yet met our ideas. This is another hard lesson, but once learned this you can grow.

The story. This ring now lovingly name the Lori Ring, for the person I gave it to, sat on my bench for FOUR years. I had this great idea but could not take it to completion. I had the base ring done, but did not have the soldering skills to solder the little tubes without melting everything. So there it sat until I was comfortable enough to finally do the work. But what a great result. Not only did I love it, she did too and still wears it regularly. The diamonds were provided by her best friend who had divorced and had no outlet for the engagement ring.


 
Good luck!
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