I just went to an event called "Empty Bowls." Local potters make and donate hundreds of bowls and volunteers cook hundreds of gallons of soup from donated food to raise money to fight hunger. After selecting a bowl, the visitor makes a free-will offering and then can enjoy a wonderful meal of soup in their new bowl.
The difficult part for me is choosing a bowl. The artists don't sign their bowls, so you are just looking at the artistry. (Even so, my son, choose a Jennie bowl.) During the soup-eating, I try to avoid looking at other people's bowls because I can develop bowl envy.
This year I was distracted during the meal because I had good soup-eating company, and there was this insanely-good Italian butter on the table and I became preoccupied thinking that people might notice how much butter I was eating. When I brought my bowl home and looked at it without distractions, I saw that it is not perfect. In fact, it is sorta crooked.
Which makes me love it even more. I really love the inviting way it tilts toward me when I eat out of it.
Most of what I do ends up being somewhat imperfect too, and yet it rarely makes me like it any more. Unfortunately I always imagine that when anyone looks at what I have made, they will see all the mistakes and think less of it. I don't know why I feel this way, but I blame it all on 4-H. I grew up in a rural area where 4-H was the only organization for kids. As part of being a member, I was forced to enter something to be judged in the county fair every year.
Usually it was something I had sewn. I had to watch the judges (usually judgmental types) as they turned my handwork inside out, picked out all the mistakes, publicly discussed them and then catalogued the errors on a "judging card" that was probably displayed.
Now I'm guessing that the point was to introduce us country kids to standards of quality, but at the time it was just plain terror and devastation. No one turns my handwork inside out anymore (at least in front of me) and yet I still fear that as someone holds my work in their hands, or sees it being worn they are looking for the flaws. If I was a perfectionist, this might not be a problem, but I am of the type that likes to do craft without a lot of stress about the outcome. And yet, I even inspect the things I make for myself to metally tally up the imperfections.
Looking at a lot of the things I treasure, I see they have imperfections: chips, cracks, tears and crookedness that are the signs of being handmade, or old or well-used. Its a good reminder to enjoy the things I make in the same way.
