Merry go Round - Failure sucks, but instructs

It's time for another ride on the merry-go-round! Jump on and join a group of 9 artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.

This month's topic for discussion is: Failure sucks: but instructs.

"Failure sucks, but instructs" is a key phrase from Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Sciences and Engineering , Stanford University. He says that the only way to avoid failure is to do nothing - but doing nothing is a form of failure too.

The word "failure" to me seems such a strong word... I try not to think of anything that I do as being a "failure" but rather that it just didn't go as I had hoped.....Maybe that comes from my years as a scientist and numerous experiments didn't go as we had planned. But we did always learn something from them and never progressed to another experiment until we figured out what was going on. The next experiment was then ever better. And in fact, other people's research has shown that people think more deeply and learn more after a failure than a success.....

Or to put it another way:


So in the life of Birdland Creations there are many examples of things not going as I had hoped. I think one of them that I have had to go through a couple of times before I've learned from it however, is that I spend time trying to develop my own little niche in the market through my individual designs, my own branding, but then expect to sell everywhere.....instead of looking to sell in my niche.

I've tried selling on a few different artisan online marketplaces and in some galleries and sometimes it just doesn't work. The audience is just not right...... For example, I tried a couple of artisan websites and got zero or very few sales. Both sites were more what I would call "serious" art. Here I am developing my whimsy niche and I try and sell on a non-whimsy site! It just doesn't work. Same with galleries where there is also the added issue of someone else presenting your work and not you....Often the owner wants to display my creations on "black velvet" as all the other jewelry is set up that way.....but my jewelry is definitely not black velvet style and never aspires to be.....

So I have learned that people go to galleries - online or bricks and mortar, because of the general style of the majority of products. Yes, there may be the occasional casual visitor looking around, but.. My jewelry it not the traditional style, so I need to keep thinking in a non-traditional, and whimsy way to sell it too. I don't need to adapt my jewelry to suit the selling place, as some people advise, I just need to find a new selling place.

And right now, I'm not looking. I am busy with what I have, it's working well and I am enjoying it immensely....But if I ever want to branch out into pastures new, I'll make sure they are pastures where Cher the sheep, Trotter the pig and Quentin Quail will be happy to hang out too!


Hope you'll take time to read what other "merry-ers" have learned from their tricky times by following these links. We are from all over the world so excuse us if some haven't posted due to time differences.

Fabienne at Easterya http://easterya.blogspot.com
Wendren at Wren http://thewrendesign.com/
Sara at Sara's Texture Crafts http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com
Marian at Florcita http://www.florcita.eu
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com
Charlotte at FancyPicnic http://fancypicnic.blogspot.com
Lily Pang at Lily Pang Art http://lilypangart.blogspot.com
Jenny at Jenny Karlsson design http://designjennykarlsson.blogspot.com