Finding the “beautiful oops” off the canvas
Lessons from artwork accident
I tripped as I was crossing the threshold of my front door. One of my aluminum pans crashed to the ground. The impact tossed two of my freshly painted canvases into the air. They landed face down on my hardwood floor. The beautiful swirls of paint I had just learned to pour into magical pattern smeared. The glossy, wet surface was now marred with indentations.
“Shit!!” I screamed into the night. It was 8:45 p.m. and my yell was the only sound. The only sign of life on our sleepy road. No cars were driving by. No house lights turned on. Even my husband who was upstairs managing my son’s bedtime didn’t come running. As loud as I thought I was, he didn’t hear me behind the closed bedroom door with music playing on TV.
As I inspected the two damaged canvases by dining room light, two words popped into mind: “beautiful oops.” It’s the name of Barney Saltzberg’s book, which I love reading to my son. It’s all about how every mistake – from drips of paints to coffee stains – is an opportunity to make something more beautiful. This was my chance to put those words into action.
The paint on my canvases wasn’t dry. One canvas at a time, I tilted and tipped the surface to spread the paint back into an even coat. I dripped some of the leftover paint mix in the pan over the top. The result: patterns that were even more interesting with added swirls of color. I had made something just as, or possibly even more, beautiful.
I thought of the many times in my life where an oops big or small led me to something beautiful. The process hasn’t always been as easy as redistributing paint across a canvas but it worked out in the end. It was one of my biggest oops that led me to my husband and kicked off our life together.
Sometimes I am paralyzed by my fear of making a mistake. I fear the blank wall, the blank page, the opportunities that aren’t clear. And it’s in these times I need to remember the power of oops I’m desperately trying to avoid. It can be the path to create something I never imagined. I’m going to count on my new paintings to be an added reminder.
I did similar with a box of cakes (ordered and paid for). I was on my way into a networking session. I tripped up the last step, wearing fit flops, it was summer. I tried to save the cakes, not myself, and scraped my shin as a result. I can remember standing at the back of the room, trying to control the damage, with the facilitator fussing at me “just leave it”. She didn’t even ask if I’d hurt myself. Thankfully the customer was ok, as it was a genuine accident. I did get an invite to return to the next session, but I declined. And never went to another.